SOCHI, September 19. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia’s government will not change basic rules of taxation, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday.

“It is wrong to shift the burden of government spending to businessmen,” he said at a meeting with businessmen.

He said that the Russian government had decided not to change conditions for businesses in Russia. “I mean our decision not to change the basic rule of taxation,” Medvedev stressed, referring to the changes in the value-added tax and introduction of a sales tax. As for the latter, he said, it would affect ordinary people in the first hand, if introduced. “We did have some doubts stemming from our experience of the use of the sales tax, although the current situation is a far cry from the situation before 2003,” he noted. These decisions, in his words, should be seen as a manifestation of stability of the economic course.

The prime minister also said that the government would not apply the budget rule and would continue anti-inflation efforts.

Apart from that, he said the government would continue the course towards deoffshorization of the economy.

Dwelling on general moods among Russian businessmen, the prime minister admitted negative impacts of sanctions but called to be more optimistic, since sooner or later these sanctions were bound to be canceled.