"I have a dream," said Mart Laar, former Prime Minister of Estonia at a speech during the conference in St. Petersburg. "In five years all countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia will have moved to flat income taxes!" Ms. Akimova from the Ministry of Taxation in Moscow was quite impressed by Mr. Laar’s enthusiastic speech. She is responsible for the current work with the flat income tax in Russia and explained how tax revenues rose considerably after the introduction of the income tax rate of 13% in 2001.