Russian Federation Country Study. A Public Finance Perspective

Price stability began to go by the wayside in the fall of 1988 with an estimated inflation rate of 7 percent which mushroomed to 10 percent in 1990. As Table A3 and A4 indicate, the state increased both the level of wages and subsidies in the other which constituted the component parts of the Soviet safety net. Real wages, however did not compensate for inflation. The decline in social welfare from a monetary angle was compounded by quality decline in social consumption areas. Although the state increase subsides to social consumption areas, the collapse of the Council on Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) which provided much of the USSR's medicine and medical supplies and a growing environmental movement which forced the closure of many chemical plant that supplied the limited domestic market. Gorbachev's attempts at reforms destroyed not only the social contract which existed between the state and its citizens but the USSR as well. The late Soviet period thus provides the starting point for examining poverty and the Russian Federations response to it in the form of the social safety net.

The Soviet social welfare system was effective in that absolute poverty, i. e. wide spread hunger or inadequate diet, was avoided in the latter years of the Soviet period since the state could supply the basic needs of the population through its control of USSR's resources and society as a whole. Research into question of poverty and therefore poverty alleviation policy (specifically the question of income inequality and distribution) was hindered by the imposition of political rather than economic explanations. In 1965, the Soviet Labor Research Institute adopted a social minimum income norm which was derived from the estimated costs of human consumption. Goskomstat revised the income level based on the prices reported by state-owned stores. The price consumers were faced with, however, due to their shopping habits, the existence of a black market," and inflationary pressures dramatically reduced their purchasing power. The Russian Federation revised the poverty line in 1992 to encompass the age and gender of individual households. The six categories are: children under six years of age children between the ages of 6 and 17, men between the ages of 18 and 59, women between the ages of 18 and 54, men age 60 and above, and women age 55 and older

Closer to the U.S poverty line definition, the Russian poverty level is established by first collecting low-cost cost food baskets for each demographic group... [and] after pricing each market food basket at national prices, age, and gender-specific multipliers yield individual poverty line for each demographic group. The definition of poverty is critically important to social welfare of Russia because, in theory, it sets pension, minimum wage level, and welfare payments. The USSR's dissolution has altered the scope, source and method of financing of social welfare programs. The Soviet state provided a broad range of social services, through state owned enterprise. From a public finance perspective, the transition to a more market oriented system has meant the diversification of social spending responsibility through the creation of off-budgetary funds (OBF) and passing down the bulk of public social spending mandates to sub-national governments. The following are the major OBFs: Pension Fund, Social Insurance Fund, Employment Fund, and the Fund for Social Support.

Created in 1991, the Pension Fund was designed to take pressure of federal budget and is authorized to collect a mandatory payment from employers in the form of a mandatory 28 percent contribution while from agricultural enterprises the mandatory contribution is 20. 6 percent and 5 percent of the total income of self-employed individuals. Employees make a 1 percent contribution to the Fund. Labor pensions, financed from these contribution, and social pension which are financed from the federal budget are administered by an independent government agency. The former constitute the majority (80 percent) of Russian pensioners and thus the level of labor pensions affect the lives 19. 5 percent of the Russian population. To be eligible for labor pensions, men must have made 25 years worth of contributions while women must have made 20 years of contribution. Eligibility for labor pensions can be lower depending on occupation--hazardous occupations such as coal mining and military service are two examples. Social pensions are for individual with less than 5 years of work experience and is equal two-thirds of the minimum old-age pension or in the case of disability the amount varies but does not exceed the minimum labor pension.

Payroll contributions are the also the main source of funding for the Social Insurance Fund (SIF) and the Employment Fund. Created in August 1992, the SIF is funded by a 5.4 percent payroll deduction from every worker. The SIF is intended to fund child care, maternal care benefits, and sick care. Generally, 74 percent of revenue collected from the SIF contributions remains with the enterprise while the remainder is sent to the center to finance federal responsibilities. Workers who have accrued eight or more years of experience receive their entire salary as do Chernobyl victims, parents with three or more children, and war victims. Workers with less that five years experience receive 60 percent of their salaries while those with between five and eight years experience receive 80 percent of their salaries. It is accepted practice that benefits are paid until the worker recovers or is granted a disability pension.

Mothers receive support through a maternity grant which equals five times the amount of the present minimum wage. Additionally, working mothers receive a maternity allowance, over the span of 126 days, which is equivalent to her entire salary. When this time has elapsed, the mother can receive a payments that equals the minimum wage for up to a year and half.

The expenditure responsibility for family benefits, which generally are divided into the following broad categories: payment made to all families with children without regard to income or prerequisites, cash transfers to disadvantaged families, and payments made to working mothers, is unequally shared among all three levels of government. Although the national level contributes, it mandates the levels of benefits while often leaving it to the sub-national governments to finance the increase.

Unemployment in the region in a relatively new phenomena due to the general nature of the Soviet system. The Employment Fund was created in 1992 to pay unemployment benefits to those affected by the transition to a market economy. Contribution to the fund comes from a mandatory two percent payroll deduction and budget transfers. Revenue collected from the payroll tax is shared between the raion and oblast governments on a 45 percent to 55 percent ratio. The former then remits 10 percent to the center for federal responsibilities. Benefits, from Western perspective, are considered generous. Individuals just entering the work force receive the minimum wage. Workers who have been laid of receive in the first three months receive a cash benefit equal to 75 percent of their previous salary. The benefits level drops to 60 percent for the following six months and 45 percent for the remainder of the year.

The Fund for Social Support ( FFS) is a limited national source for sub-national funding of social programs. In 1992, the FFS accounted for only .01 percent of GDP. The stated purpose of this fund is to aid rayons that have been particularly hard hit in the transition from a command economy. The FFS began operations in 1992 with revenue from seized Party assets and tax from re-appraised inventories. It is also supposed to receive revenue form the privatization process (although it did not receive the ten percent assigned in 1992) and "receipts from the revaluation of commodities in state stores and ruble receipts from sale of food aid."

Although inflation increases revenue to the Russian government, it naturally impoverishes the population when adjustments are not made (or insufficient to deal adequately with inflation) to monetary benefits such as the minimum wage and pensions which provides the basis for the social safety net. Inflation was one of the primary causes of poverty in Russia. As chart A5 shows, social subsidies and transfers have also been ineffective because they do not reach the truly needy. The primary reason for this economic waste is the lack of means based testing.

The problem of hyper-inflation which had plagued Russia earlier in the transition period has been replaced" by the dramatic reduction in real wages and severe dilemma of arrears. By December 1995, real wages declined by 13 percent and real consumption declined by 5.3 percent. Real wage decline, and unexpectedly low levels of unemployment, can be attributed to evasion of excess wage tax and inside the gate employment" by which enterprise managers hoard labor by paying minimum wage and compensation workers in non-taxable manners such as payment in kind, low interest long-term loans that have questionable repayment terms. It should be noted that the Pension Fund is becoming more experienced in detecting methods of tax avoidance and recent action has been taken to close loopholes

Reduced inflation has given way to arrears as one of the primary causes of poverty in the Russian Federation and has primarily been the result of international pressure to reduce the budget deficit by ending emission based methods of covering the deficit" and tax avoidance and evasion. According to ITAR-TASS, pensioner were owed nearly 3 billion dollars in October 1996. Revealing the revenue gap, 22 regions were able to make pension payments while the remaining 69 needed transfers from the federal fund. Wage arrears for both private and public sector were estimated at 43 trillion rubles--9 billion of which was the state's responsibility.

An area of concern which was not addressed in 1992 and continues to be a problem today is a rapidly deteriorating income distribution between the regions of the Russian Federation. The disparities between the rich and poor regions could possibly be the worst amongst all the federations.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

One of the greatest obstacles to successful Russian market economic development is the absence of a modern and effective tax system and lack of reliable data. Foreign capital always seeks predictability, especially in terms of projecting tax liabilities. Lack of a stable tax regime is the number one reason why Russia's direct foreign investment dollar level is so low compared with other emerging markets. A frequent and common concern expressed by foreign companies is the fear (whether real or perceived) of an unstable, inequitable, unreliable, and unpredictable tax system in Russia. As a result, capital that could potentially be invested in Russia is instead invested in other countries that are perceived as enjoying more stable tax systems. For Russia, it is time to introduce tax breaks or other incentives by the end of the year for companies using international accounting methods as part of a new business reform plan. For example, companies which would follow these (international accounting) standards will have their profit tax lowered by, say, five percent... or maybe they will receive other privileges. Most Russian companies use domestic accounting practices developed to calculate tax levels. Western accountants say Russian accounting has limited use for business planning and investment. Below, we have stated some suggestion and concerns regarding public finance in transitional economies:

Before making any changes in the tax system the officials have to think very carefully to avoid unplanned changes. For instance, the law on the VAT has been changed 13 times since it was enacted. Proper tax reform would also solve another of Russia's problems--its chronic budget deficit. The country's inadequate system of tax revenue collection has been unable to keep pace with the rise in government expenditure, leading to a budget deficit of 6.3 per cent of GDP in the first half of this year. According to Mr. Stuart Brown, eastern Europe economist at Paribas Capital Markets, while fiscal policy has been lax in Russia, monetary policy has had to bear the burden of reducing inflation. The result has been high real interest rates. No wonder then that several leading companies are looking abroad for capital. Reducing the budget deficit, to reduce "crowding out" at home and allow fiscal policy to take some of the burden in controlling inflation, must therefore be a priority for the Russian government. The problem is that tax evasion and a culture of non-payment in Russian industry, will hamper efforts to improve revenue collection.

Regulate the movement of budget money by reorganize the Russian treasury and concentrate all budgetary financial flows within it.

A good approach to battling non-compliance would be the implementation of a unified computer information system to control revenues and expenditures of the federal budget and state extra-budgetary funds, which should contain taxpayers registration system and bring together information on tax and customs duties payments, banking transactions and cash disbursements, as well as data on tracing and utilization of the federal budget resources. But it is still difficult to implement. First, Russia does not have high qualified specialists in database and management information systems (MIS). Second, it will require buying expensive mainframe computers what is critical under collected (60 percent - percent) revenue. It is also important to decide what kind of tax information is going to be the first to be put in the database. The State Tax Service of the Russian Federation recently began this process by requiring all taxpayers to indicate a personal taxpayer identification number (PTIN) on payments and settlement documents for taxes and other levies beginning on August 1, 1995. The rule as of January 1, 1996, states that a PTIN should be included on all payment and settlement documents. Also Russia's State Taxation Service is redoubling its efforts to stop commercial banks from hiding income from tax authorities. The taxation service recently found that credit institutions failed to transfer 3 trillion rubles to the state on time, and that they have used legal means to hide their income. With the centralized computer tax information system, it would be easier to observe taxpayers and prevent tax evasion.

·         Reduce the cost of servicing the state debt.

·         Stop the emission of money.

·         Improve control over monopolies.

·         Reorganize the banking system. Set up a federal deposit of insurance bond.

·         Reform ministry of finance and economy.

·         Diversification of the tax base.

Some services should be financed by taxes levied on local beneficiaries. "Local taxes" are those over which local authorities have some control. Which taxes to assign? The question is not easy for Russia. In many market economies, the central government controls those taxes considered to be most redistributive, such as personal income taxes, and the cyclical corporate income tax, leaving more stable revenue sources levied on a consumption base or property to the local level. For example, some federal systems (the U.S., Switzerland, Canada) allow subnational corporate taxes, it would be better for the federal government to set the corporate income tax. For the transition economies, considerations of both administrative complexity and allocative efficiency suggest that subnationally levied corporate taxes should be avoided at the present time. Permitting the many small subnational governments in the transition economies to set corporate tax rates (or adjust the tax base) will allow substantial tax competition and differentiation in enterprise taxation, influencing enterprise location decisions in perhaps undesirable directions.

.The development of a more efficient and effective social safety net in perhaps the most immediate and difficult task to accomplish in the Russian Federation. Aside from cultural reasons outlined earlier, economic growth cannot occur without social stability which will not happen until Russia can design an effective system of coverage. Some possible ways to improve this critical area are: diversify the tax base for social programs, redesign the system of federal-sub-national relation which has made the latter bear an unjust amount of the burden--unfair because of regional differences and compounded by Soviet planning--, and make stronger attempts to reduce arrears which is a difficult task due to the temptation to return to emission-based methods of covering expenditure requirements.

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