from the 2004 budget

Yesterday, the vice speaker of the legislative assembly of the Rostov region, Evgeny Shepelev, told Kommersant that the development of the regional budget for 2004, as in previous years, will take place in difficult conditions: it is not yet clear whether new revenue sources transferred to the regional level will be able to replace taxes abolished from January 1, 2004. According to him, it is impossible to make an accurate forecast yet. The day before, Evgeny Shepelev returned from Moscow, where he took part in a meeting held by the Federation Council for representatives of regional legislative bodies. It discussed the formation of federal and regional budgets for the next year. Representatives of the Russian Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Economic Development said that next year the government will continue its policy of reducing the tax burden. Consolidated budget revenues will decrease by 1.2% of GDP and amount to 26.6%. The decline in revenue will come mainly from the reduction in the value added tax rate from 20% to 18% and the elimination of sales tax. The stabilization fund is planned to receive 83 billion rubles next year.

Evgeny Shepelev said that the federal authorities did not tell the representatives of the regions anything unexpected: the 2004 budget fits perfectly into the logic of inter-budgetary relations in recent years, when regional incomes were constantly declining. Earlier, the Minister of Finance of the Rostov Region, Nina Sverchkova, stated that the region's own income next year would exceed the 2003 figures by only 12.2%. At the same time, transfers from the federal center will decrease from 9 billion rubles to 7.164 billion, there will be no federal subsidies to compensate for the loss of excise taxes on tobacco products from January 1, 2003, and subsidies to equalize budgetary security will decrease from 5.1 billion to 4.448 billion. As a result, Revenue receipts for the region's consolidated budget are planned at 30.2 billion rubles (slightly higher than in 2003), and expenditures will decrease from 24 billion rubles this year to 23.2 billion in 2004. Taking into account inflation and the fact that a significant increase in income sources is not expected next year, the budget, according to Nina Sverchkova, must be drawn up extremely carefully. According to Kommersant, the region will lose 600-700 million rubles from the abolition of the sales tax from next year alone, and the redistribution of taxes on imputed income, on the gambling business and on profit, designed to compensate for it, will only partially do this.

Evgeny Shepelev told Kommersant that in response to the regions' complaints about the constant decline in budget revenues, federal officials said that if now the revenues of the budget of the Russian Federation and regional budgets correlate as 60% to 40%, then next year this ratio will become 56% to 44%. . At the same time, according to the vice speaker, this is by no means an indicator - we still need to see what kind of taxes are transferred to the regions and whether they will be able to collect them. In addition, according to him, the scheme according to which the regions will be allocated funds from the created stabilization fund is still unclear.

Summing up what has been said, Evgeny Shepelev said that this year, according to already established practice, regional authorities will have to again seek help from their representatives in the Federation Council and State Duma deputies so that they lobby for the interests of the region when passing the budget through parliament.

ALEXEY PAVLOVSKY

Kommersant (Rostov) No. 143 from 08/13/2003, p. 12

Good things are not expected in the Rostov region