Serfdom in Russia Great, businesses began to send serfs into those areas in an attempt to harvest their large amount of untapped natural resources Tsar Alexander I wanted to reform the system but was thwarted in this ambition. New laws allowed all classes (except the serfs) to own land, a privilege that had previously been confined to the nobility. Russian serfdom was finally abolished in the emancipation reform of 1861 by Tsar Alexander II. Scholars have proposed multiple overlapping reasons to account for the abolition, including fear of a large-scale revolt by the serfs, the government's financial needs, evolving cultural sensibilities, and the
Taxation in Russia businesses, imputed tax on retail operations, and redesigned the taxation of private and corporate motor vehicles. On January 1, 2004 the VAT rate decreased from 20 percent to 18 percent. In 2007–2008 Putin, both as president and later as prime minister, promoted a decrease in the VAT rate to 12 percent by 2010; Putin's allies Sergey Chemezov and Minister of Economics Elvira Nabiullina support this proposal. Minister of Finance Alexey Kudrin opposed the change due to the need to finance the Pension Fund and the rearmament of Russian troops. On January 1, 2005 Russia abolished the tax on advertising—the last