Financial journal № 4(22) October-December 2014

L. Shneydman, S. Solomyany
Self-Regulation in Audit: Main Results
The article presents the results of the analysis of self-regulating organizations activity in 2010-2014. It describes positive and negative effects of the activity of self-regulating organizations on the audit profession development. The article pays special attention to the role of self-regulating organizations in organizing audit activity, establishing a comprehensive system of external quality assurance of the audit activity subjects and ensuring their informational openness.
Key words: audit, audit activity, self-regulating organizations, audit profession, audit council, external quality assurance, public oversight

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V. Bauer, T. Loginova
Road Map for Deoffshorization of the Russian Economy: Conceptual Basis and Activities
Companies traditionally use offshore zones as an instrument of tax planning, working out and implementing different methods of tax optimization. Global financial crisis, and as a consequence, deficit of state budgets of many countries contributed to harsh increase of necessity to work out mechanisms, preventing companies' avoidance from local taxation. At the same time, globalization of multinational corporations and transition to digital economy led to the necessity of revision of existing tax legislation norms of different countries. In this regard there is a need to work out the complex of actions, which will realize the task of gradual enforcement of tax rules, aimed at counteraction to base erosion and profit shifting.
Key words: deoffshorization of Russian economy, road map, enforcement, options of new hard, soft and smart power, assessment of regulatory influence

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N. Milogolov, M. Pinskaya
Controlled Foreign Company Rules: Comparative Analysis
The purpose of this article is to summarize CFC rules in foreign countries and to work out recommendations on reforming tax residence institute in Russia. There is a review of national CFC rules, which are in force in France, United Kingdom, Germany, USA, China and Brazil. Proposed Russian CFC rules are also analyzed in this article. Main result is that proposed Russian CFC rules need further development and should be coordinated with OECD recommendations on this issue coming up in 2015.
Key words: controlled foreign company, corporate profit tax, tax residence, offshore jurisdiction, tax avoidance

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M. Kotlyarov, I. Rycova
Prevention of Tax Base Shifting to Low-tax Jurisdictions: OECD Experience and Priorities for Russia
OECD's experience in combatting tax evasion through utilization of low-tax jurisdictions is examined in this article. Two periods are under consideration – creating of the mechanism of preventing harmful tax competition (1998-2011) and introducing Action Plan on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (since 2013). This experience brings value to Russia, where campaign against use by taxpayers of low-tax jurisdictions is announced («deoffshorisation» of the Russian economy). The necessity of a deep methodological examination of amendments in Russian legislation concerning controlled foreign companies, transfer pricing, tax residency and beneficial ownership issues is emphasized in this article.
Key words: tax heaven, offshore, low-tax jurisdiction, harmful tax competition, controlled foreign companies, tax residency, OECD Action Plan on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting, «deoffshorisation»

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V. Nazarov, O. Bogacheva, T. Fokina
The Role of Legislative Authorities in Consideration and Adoption of the Draft Budget Law
The article considers the issues of legislative's participation in consideration and adoption of the draft budget law under the conditions of performance-based budgeting, including issues of authorizations, budget documents, budget formats, voting. The experience of Parlament participation of different countries provides the evidence of increasing their authorities in budget decision-making related to budget reform aimed at budget openness and transparency, budget presentation in program format. OECD countries experience provided the base for conclusions regarding changes in the Russian budgetary legislation concerning the State Duma's authorities in annual budget procedure.
Key words: аnnual budget act, Parliament's power, right of amendment, appropriations, voting, budget documents, budget authorization, performance budgeting

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A. Mamedov, N. Avksentyev
Subnational Debt in Russian Federation: Retrospective and Perspective Analysis
Today the analysis of sub-national debt is becoming urgent due to the recent significant increase in debt burden on regional budgets in Russian Federation. In order to introduce adequate governmental budget policy measures, that deal with budget consolidation issues on the sub-national level, one should first analyze the current situation with debt in regions and municipalities. The main aim of current paper is the retrospective and perspective analysis of sub-national debt. The paper presents the structure and concentration of regional debt, analysis of interrelationship of debt and investment expenditures, issues connected with changes in budget rules, quantitative approach of assessing budget consolidation attempts. In addition we present some issues of municipal debt, including its structure and relation to regional debt.
Key words: Russia, fiscal federalism, regional debt, municipal debt, subnational debt, budget consolidation

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M. Milchakov
The Implementation of Ineffective Regional Expenditure Assessment in the Decision-making Process of Grants Allocation
An urgent task in the period of economic recession and decrease in revenue base is to carry out the optimization of regional expenditure, that will help to maintain their budget stability. At the Federal level it is necessary to create and support appropriate conditions, which will be stimulating Russian regions to minimize the amount of inefficient expenditure. One of the possible decisions is to implement the results of ineffective regional expenditure assessment in the decision-making process of federal aid allocation and grants calculation.
Author presents and characterizes three approaches for ineffective regional expenditure assessment: restrictive approach, approach based on standards and service costs auditing and planning-programming indicative performance approach.
The article includes an example of the complex methodology for inefficient budget expenditure assessment of the Russian regions. The results of such a complex methodology can be integrated in the process of general and incentive grants allocation.
The implementation of the results will enable to strengthen control over the budget financing on the regional level. The analysis of the effectiveness on a wide range of expenditure items will also allow to identify reserves for possible optimization.
Key words: the Budget Code of the Russian Federation, budget of Russian constituent entity, general grants and subsidies (matching grants), intergovernmental fiscal relations, Russian regions, ineffective expendit

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A. Zolotareva
The Law on Benefits Monetization: Delineation of Spending Powers and Unfunded Mandates
The article concentrates on the analysis of practical application of the Federal Law №122-FZ of August 22, 2004 in the context of delineation of spending powers in the social protection sphere between the state and local governments.
The author concludes that the Law №122-FZ, having significantly streamlined the system of delineation of spending powers in the social protection sphere, failed to solve all the problems in that field and in a number of cases gave rise to new ones. The main shortcomings of the Law №122-FZ are: inconsistencies on the issue of preserving in-kind benefits for the federal benefit holders, whose right to receive them had arisen before the Law entered into force, and also uncertainty on the issue of unfunded mandates, i. e. strictly specified by federal law spending obligations of lower level budgets without compensating costs of satisfying them. The article contains the author's propositions on the amendments to the legislation aiming to solve the identified problems.
Key words: benefits monetization, Law № 122-FZ, unfunded mandates, social benefits, social protection, delineation of spending powers

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A. Navoy
Towards Transmission to the NEW Russia's International Finance and International Trade Model during the Period of Global Turbulence
The article reviews theoretical approaches to the organization of the national trade and finance relations. Negative consequences of the chronically current account surplus in the oil-export countries, as well as main drivers of the imbalances in the capital flows in developing countries, were determined by author. There are some suggestions for improving Russia's model of integration in foreign trade and global capital flows.
Key words: balance of payments; international investment position; foreign trade operations; interest rate policy; external debt; refinancing; central bank; currency exchange; international reserves; exchange rate

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I. Varjas, K. Shvandar, T. Burova
Actualization of Macroeconomic Forecasts for Aim of Fiscal Process
The article discusses the possibility of using the new database-driven dynamic forecasting of macroeconomic indicators to clarify the short- and medium-term budget projections. A study of existing systems, which are used to generate forecasts and their timely adjustment. The conclusion of the article is about the need for a balanced system of adjustments to update the forecasts in the fiscal process.
Key words: balance sheet, forecast, macroeconomics, economic expectations, exchange rate, the price of oil, business confidence indexes

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T. Semkina
Does VAT taxation system of precious metals effective?
This article analyses certain propositions to improve the efficiency of VAT treatment of operations with precious metals, which, on the one hand, allow to combine the interests of the population, legal entities and the state budget effectively, and, on the other hand, to eliminate the negative impact of this tax on the development of the precious metals market.
Key words: VAT, effective, standard VAT rate, zero VAT rate, exemption, investment effectiveness

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A. Anisimova
Diamond market: control at the international and national levels and taxation
The article analyzes the problems associated with the regulation of the diamond market. This work shows regulation of rough diamonds at the international and national levels in several countries. In addition, this article touches such important issue as money laundering and terrorist financing through trade in diamonds. Additionally, the article describes the treatment of diamonds on diamond exchanges, and raises the issue of tax regulation of import.
Key words: diamonds, rough diamonds, Kimberley Process, VAT, customs duties, control, taxation

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V. Trubin, L. Zhuravleva, O. Korableva, M. Burankova
Experience of Implementation Infrastructure Projects of Public-private Partnerships in the Social Sector
The Russian infrastructure needs essential modernization, but it is quite difficult to carry out in the conditions of limitation of the budgetary resources to regional and municipal authorities. The expansion of practice of use of the public-private partnership (PPP), within which the private companies assume risks in infrastructure projects, including the socially significant branches, which are traditionally the sphere of responsibility of the state, may be the possible way of solving this situation. The state and prospects of development of PPP in the social sphere are considered in the article: the main characteristics, the review of the international experience (the country of OECD and the European Union), and also the Russian experience, advantage and restriction of use of this mechanism in practice, possible ways of further development of PPP in the Russian Federation.
Key words: public-private partnership, infrastructure, social sphere, modernization, development prospects, the Russian Federation

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N. Matveeva
Professional Development of Public Servants: European Experience
This article aims to analyse the foreign experience of professional development of public servants. Moreover a brief description of the main aspects of training process is given, the basic principles of professional development of public servants in the European countries and the USA are described and the directions of practical application of the foreign experience in Russian Federation are defined.
Key words: professional development, public servants, foreign experience, competency framework

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