The fundamental place in the financial structure of each country belongs to the state budget. The main plan for the revenue-expenditure component of the country's economic, social and political life is valid throughout fiscal year. The budget legislation of the Russian Federation defines a sovereign “estimate” as a form of filling and spending money funds, the purpose of which is to fully fulfill the tasks and functions of the state.
What budget is considered regional?
The budget system is a mechanism for implementing the functioning of the main financial plan in any state. Its effectiveness and efficiency are extremely important for the effective implementation of the much-needed principle of social equality and justice, in the same proportion carried out throughout Russia.
The federal and regional budgets are important elements in the process of redistribution and subsequent use of national revenue. Since the results of the activities of business entities in each country are indicators of gross domestic product and national income, their distribution is considered an extremely important procedure.
The regional budget is the central link in the financial plans of the administrative-territorial units of the state. Their natural purpose is considered to be the full material support of the functions assigned to the management bodies of a particular subject of the Russian Federation.
How is the regional budget prepared?
The formation of the regional budget is in accordance with the national financial plan, calculated for the year. At the same time, the revenue part largely depends on the inclusion of own and regulatory revenues. The first group includes local taxes and fees, including:
- taxes on acquired property;
- on property owned by enterprises and organizations;
- the so-called transport and road taxes;
- gambling taxes;
- licensed monthly fees.
Own revenues, which represent regional budget revenues, include both the profit from the operation of the property provided by the authorities of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and the funds received as payment for the services provided government agencies budget financing.
Features of regional budget revenues
Regional budgets of the Russian Federation include such an important indicator as the standard of security for each resident individually. These same parameters, as a rule, serve as the basis for the distribution of minimum incomes laid down in local budgets.
Meanwhile, exceeding the local budget norm of average indicators at the federal level allows the former to act as a donor for the latter. If everything happens the other way around, the local budget becomes the full recipient of the group of so-called regulatory revenues, which are:
- subsidies;
- loans
- transfers;
- subventions.
They are formed at the expense of federal taxation. All fees go through the mandatory stage of redistribution immediately before they are transferred to the federal, regional and local budgets of the Russian state. The volume of regulatory income intended for revenues to regional and local budgets is determined in accordance with the standards and instructions included in the range of basic legislative acts.
Since the regional budget is the central link of any territorial financial plan, its task can be considered full coverage of the costs necessary to ensure the performance of the functions of state entities. Filling it, as already mentioned, is due to various charges. Each of them represents a separate type of financial resources:
- Grants are funds that are transferred from a higher budget to balance the lower ones in case of a shortage of the latter. Charges necessarily occur in a fixed amount.
- A transfer is a monetary resource directed to the local budget from the federal treasury to actually equalize the regional budget security.
- The subvention, in contrast to the previous types of accruals, is a specific financial allocation from the federal budget to the local one for the implementation of a specific important social program.
The main items of expenditures of the regional budget
The funds of regional budgets are used, as a rule, in specific areas, where the main ones are the following:
- providing the necessary amount of finance for the full functioning of state bodies of all branches of government;
- repayment and servicing of state debts (external and internal debt);
- providing a full range of relevant costs for the conduct of elections, referenda;
- implementation of projects and programs for special purposes for individual constituent entities of the Russian Federation;
- acquisition and formation of state property belonging to the subjects of Russia;
- creation of foreign economic relations of regions at the international level and support of existing ones;
- provision of enterprises, organizations and budgetary institutions areas of finance for their comprehensive development and maintenance;
- financial assistance from the state to the media for each of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation;
- provision of funds to local budgets;
- allocation of reserve funds to local governments due to the vesting of the municipality with some state powers, etc.
The role of the consolidated budget in the financial system of the state
Going deeper into the budget legislation of the Russian Federation, it is impossible not to notice the concept of a consolidated budget that is often found in it. The regional budget and the local budget are included in a single set of financial plans for a specific subject of the Russian Federation. In turn, together with the federal generalized information of individual regions represent consolidated budget state.
Unlike the national financial plan, the consolidated one does not go through the procedure of consideration and approval by representative bodies. In fact, it is a statistical indicator of the budget code, which includes the expected items of income and expenses, clarification of additional sources for filling the budget and the receipt of funds, as well as directions for their application in Russia and some constituent entities of the Russian Federation.
The federal and each regional budget (the budget of a state entity), passing the annual planning stage, without fail use the summarized data from the consolidated sovereign estimates. For example, in order to determine the volume of certain deductions from distributed taxes and the amount of subsidies, the consolidated budget data of the corresponding administrative-territorial unit is taken as the basis. It is imperative that the amount of the reserve entering the state’s financial turnover coincides with the analysis of the formation and operation of the main sovereign fund.
It is also worth noting that the consolidated budgets of the regions play a huge role in the course of the calculations, which demonstrate the degree of provision of the population as a whole or residents of certain areas.For example, when drawing up a financial plan for a particular area, averaged indicators of one person’s expenses for medical care are often required, etc.
The expenses of the regional budget in the financial system of the Russian Federation go through the phase of delineation, since any of its levels has an equal set of rights to partially receive income or to consolidate funds in full. In addition, any state bodies and local self-government have the authority to independently determine the spending vectors of regional budget funds.
What needs to be done to improve the budget system in Russia?
Meanwhile, today in the sphere of inter-budgetary relations of the Russian state, coordination between the center and the regions plays an extremely important role. It should be emphasized that the root cause of most of the shortcomings of the budget mechanism in the Russian Federation is centralization, or federalism.
Strict implementation of the following recommendations of financial experts will help eliminate all the problems of a functioning system:
- To begin with, it is worth putting in order all the inconsistencies between the cost items of regional bodies and the expected budget filling.
- Then, the level of differentiation of individual subjects of the Russian Federation in the socio-economic sphere should be reduced.
- Equally important is the inclusion of additional sources of budget filling through the call of the territorial tax authorities to the full use of their revenue potential.
- The regional budgets of the Russian Federation should have a clear focus on the realization of common interests.
The specifics of the relationship of the federal and regional budgets
The inter-budgetary relations between the regions and the municipality can be characterized by the example of the relationship between the federal and regional budgets. Since local governments operate only on the basis of the local budget, the procedure for drafting, forming and approving is carried out by them. In addition, the execution and control of execution is also the prerogative of local managers. In this case, the subsidies provided by the federal budget to equalize the financial security of villages are necessary to balance the possibilities for local authorities to exercise appropriate powers based on the level of security or population. Subsidies for settlements are distributed through the legally approved standards for deductions from taxes on personal income. Such subsidized income is a regional financial fund, the purpose of which is to support the budget, in particular its revenue side.
At the same time, considering subsidies that initially come to the regional budget (regional budget), and then are distributed at the local level, it should be noted that their combination forms a fund for the co-financing of expenses in a particular region. The compensation fund is formed by a set of subventions coming from the regional to the local budget.
However, the decision to allocate financial support to any municipal formation in the form of the above deductions, as a rule, occurs after confirmation of the feasibility of such financial assistance. That is, the task of the state is to control the rational use of funds from a specialized fund in order to prevent financing of an ineffective management mechanism.
So, the authorities have the right to carry out checks to clarify the activities of local authorities in the field of budget filling, budget spending and compliance with appropriate savings measures.
The objectives of the state budget policy
The main objectives of the annual policy in the field of financial planning are the following positions, designed for the long-term perspective of the effectiveness of budgetary instruments:
- The implementation of a state plan at any level should not go against the policy of socio-economic development.
- Determining the sources of revenue and expenditures of the regional budget (or the budget of municipalities) need constant public monitoring. Only in this way can national goals be achieved to fully ensure the implementation of financial programs.
- For the effective implementation of any state project, sufficient attention should be paid to the validity of the concept of resource provision.
In addition, a mandatory step of the state and each of its subjects in the formation of the distribution of budgetary funds is to improve the quality of services provided to the population. First of all, we are talking about healthcare, education and the sociocultural component. Regular revenues from the national to regional municipal budgets are largely determined by the functioning parameters of the pension system. It is extremely important here that the territorial bodies have the opportunity to timely take into account demographic changes in the general structure of the population.
Problems of the budget system of the Russian Federation
According to most experts in the field of finance, the success and effectiveness of the budget mechanism largely depends on the work of the state tax system. It should be aimed at creating a favorable climate for the participation of investors, increasing the level of entrepreneurial activity. The taxation of a country determines the ways of modernizing the structure of the state’s economy, and therefore its competitiveness in the markets of scientific and technical labor. It follows that the sources of resources of the federal budget, as well as the revenues of the regional budget of any of the subjects of the Russian Federation, are predetermined by the success of the tax system.
Achieving high results in the process of optimizing and transforming the political and economic sphere of activity of state bodies and local self-government needs to build an improved model of the budget structure of the Russian Federation. The system, first of all, which is not a counterbalance to the federal structure of the country, is capable of qualitatively distributing social and financial resources at all levels. The regional development budget of an administrative-territorial unit, being directly dependent on relations with the federal center, reflects the level of socio-economic development of the state.
In general, the budget system of the Russian Federation has a fairly high chance of improving and improving efficiency, therefore, the government financial management must eliminate the following:
- the discrepancy between the volume of expenditure obligations undertaken by the authorities, the revenues of regional and local budgets;
- deficiencies in the regulatory framework governing the industry of intergovernmental relations;
- excessive differentiation of the subjects of the Russian state by socio-economic factor;
- uneven and ill-conceived distribution of subsidies, subsidies and subventions from federal to regional budgets, incapable of stimulating the desire of recipient entities to develop financial and economic activities.
Conclusion
The budget of the Russian Federation is the main financial plan of the country, compiled annually. Being the basic tool for the accumulation of funds, it provides the central and regional authorities with a natural opportunity to exercise managerial powers. The budget system of the Russian Federation is a direct reflection of the state’s characteristic style of leadership in all areas of the economy.
By determining the tax climate of the country, the federal budget is able to clearly demonstrate the amount of financial resources required by the state in relation to the actual reserves. Proceeding from this, the regional budget receives clear fixed directions for spending funds for a particular industry, thus expressing the economic national policy.
