378. TELEGRAM TO THE POROKHOVO DISTRICT SOVIET

Written on July 2, 1919 · First published in 1965 in Collected Works, Fifth Ed., Vol. 51. Printed from the typewritten copy. · page 260

Porokhovo District Soviet
Petrograd
Copy to Berkalov, Naval Firing Range, Petrograd

Impress upon your finance department the impermissibility of levying an extraordinary tax on the special bonus of 50,000 rubles received by Berkalov from the Council of People’s Commissars for an outstanding invention.

A decree exempting such rewards from taxation has been adopted by the Council of People’s Commissars and is now in print.^[1]

Lenin
Chairman, Council of People’s Commissars

Notes

[1] On June 16, 1919, the C.P.C. received a telegram from military engineer Y. A. Berkalov stating that the finance department of the Porokhovo District Soviet of Petrograd had imposed an extraordinary tax of 40,000 rubles on the 50,000 rubles granted to Berkalov by a decision of the C.P.C. of November 26, 1918, as a reward for his artillery invention (consisting in the discovery of methods for long-range artillery fire and for increasing the muzzle velocity of the shells).

The decision of the C.P.C. “On Inventions”, dated June 30, 1919, which laid down that rewards for inventions were exempt from taxation, was published on July 4 in Izvestia No. 144.