MOSCOW, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Russia may raise taxes on the gas industry but has no plans to cut them for the oil sector despite complaints from oil firms that they need more cash for investments, a government official said on Thursday.

"We are planning no radical steps to decrease taxation on the oil industry," the head of tax department at the Finance Ministry, Ilya Trunin, told a conference in Moscow.


"We think that the tax burden on this (gas) sector should increase," Trunin told the conference, organised by Troika Dialog brokerage.

Russian state and private oil companies have repeatedly called on the government to reduce taxation, which they describe as the heaviest after Norway, as they say they have run out of cash to invest in new fields and may face output stagnation soon.