End of the season

The Federation Council approved everything

Following the Duma, the Federation Council also ends its spring season. Having promptly appointed Alexander Savenkov as the new military prosecutor yesterday, without any further questions, the upper board, like the lower board, hastened to approve a number of bills before the holidays that had already passed the Duma examination in three readings. Among the majority of senators, as well as among the Duma majority, the projects practically do not cause a negative reaction, since their authors are either the government or the president.

The White House, however, had to worry a little about excise taxes on gasoline, which starting next year will be paid not by oil refineries, as now, but by gas stations. Excise taxes on fuel and lubricants will be allocated to both the federal treasury and regional budgets. But in what proportions is unknown. In the Tax Code, this issue is left to the discretion of the government, which managed to announce that it intends to divide gasoline taxes fraternally: leave 50% to the regions. However, for most regions this share seemed too small. According to them, it will not compensate for the losses that will result from the abolition of the 1% turnover tax intended for road funds from January next year for regional budgets. Therefore, senators refused to vote for government amendments to the Tax Code until they heard that the government was ready to raise the regions' share in gasoline excise taxes to 70-75%.

Or rather, their colleague, Deputy Chairman of the Budget Committee Pavel Bushmin, told the senators about the White House’s readiness in specific figures. Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Kudrin simply assured that the government agrees to increase the regions’ share of tax revenues. But to what extent will be decided by the tripartite commission (Duma deputies, members of the Federation Council and the government) to prepare the draft budget for 2003, the next meeting of which will take place on July 31. These assurances were enough for the senators to approve both the excise bills and those chapters of the Tax Code that regulate the taxation of small businesses.

To approve the law on the turnover of agricultural land, the senators did not need any additional conditions. 126 members of the Federation Council voted for the free purchase and sale of arable land in full confidence that they are helping to create effective owners in the countryside. 14 senators voted against it, having no doubt that the sale of land would lead first to the impoverishment of the peasants, and then to a social explosion in the countryside. Representative of the Krasnodar Territory, ex-governor Nikolai Kondratenko, called this law “the most tragic mistake of Russian parliamentarism.”

In addition, the Federation Council approved the law on alternative civil service in the strict version in which it received it from the Duma. In this law, civilian service appears to be as compulsory for men as military service. When replacing military service with labor service, you will have to serve in enterprises that are subordinate to federal executive authorities, including in organizations falling under the jurisdiction of the armed forces. Guys will leave for labor service, just like military service, outside the region in which they live. After school you will have to spend three and a half years in alternative service, and after university - one year and nine months.

Today the Federation Council must approve the law on bankruptcy and countering extremism.

Victor KHAMRAEV