The relationship of tax instruments and performance indicators of companies to ensure the environmental component of sustainable development in Russia

The article lists the categories that can be considered as taxation instruments. It is proposed to regard tax burden as the main instrument of tax policy for realising sustainable development of the country. It is concluded that in practice the consequences of its increase and decrease can be difficult to predict. One of the reasons lies in the fact that financial decisions of companies are influenced not so much by the size of the tax burden as by the change in profitability provoked by it. The comparison of the tax burden and profitability indicators for all sectors of the Russian economy has been conducted. The correlation of the profitability (profitability of goods sold and profitability of assets) and the tax burden indicators by industries of the Russian economy has been calculated. The results are ambiguous: it is concluded that there is no connection between the environmental friendliness of the type of activity and the interdependence between the industry indicators of the tax burden and profitability. It has been found that not only the tax burden, but also the level of profitability are differentiated by industry. The classification of economic activities by the degree of environmental friendliness is proposed: directly affecting the environment, associated with the impact on it, associated with indicators of environmental safety, activities that have no direct connection with the environment.