PJSC Sberbank : 2,000+ Sber customers claim life insurance tax refunds via online service year-to-date

Year-to-date, 2,000+ Sberbank life insurance clients holding endowment or investment life insurance policies have applied for a tax refund using the service that was developed hand in hand with SberSolutions and Sber's Wealth Management Unit.

Tax Refund allows users to claim part of their personal income taxes back:

• treatment and tuition costs, contributions to life insurance investment and endowment policies, individual pension plans and charity donations (social tax refund) - up to RUB 15,600
• depositing into your personal investment accounts (investment tax refund) - up to RUB 52,000
• when buying housing and mortgage interest you have paid (property tax refund) - up to RUB 260,000 and up to RUB 390,000, respectively.

The service is available upon registration. Tax professionals will then advise you on how to declare your additional income, the refunds you are entitled to, and the paperwork they require. They will then fill out a declaration for you and help you send the paperwork to a tax office. Users of the Gosuslugi website can get a 2-NDFL receipt automatically in their SberSolutions account.

According to SberSolutions, in 9M21 the plurality of tax refund claims regarding Sberbank life insurance products was registered in Moscow (58%) and St. Petersburg (15%). The service is also popular in Samara Region, Rostov Region, Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, and Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug-Yugra.

The Optimal bundle is priced at RUB 1,699 and the Maximal one is available for RUB 3,499. Seventy-five per cent of clients go for the Maximal plan, which includes a consultant who will fill out a declaration for you and the option to send the paperwork to the tax authority through a mobile application.

Evgeny Shcheklanov, managing director, Sberbank life insurance:

"All endowment and investment life insurance clients can receive 13% of their contributions back in a tax deduction, but the refund cannot exceed RUB 15,600 a year. Sberbank life insurance currently has some 800,000 clients with these types of policies who are eligible for a tax refund. Claiming a deduction yourself can be time consuming. Our service allows you to do this conveniently and quickly, and the best reward for a client is a tax refund from the state. As many as 2,128 Sberbank life insurance clients have addressed our tax consultants for help year-to-date. Undoubtedly, the service has a great potential for growth: many of our clients do not even think about claiming a tax deduction, believing that this is hard."