Sources of increasing inter-budgetary transfers to local budgets

In recent years, the problem local budgets’ destabilization is one of the most urgent in the Russian economy. Various aspects of this problem are reflected in several works of experts and scientists, including those from the Institute of Socio-Economic Development of Territories of RAS (ISEDT RAS). Crisis processes have affected the vast majority of regions, which gives no grounds to speak of favorable prospects. In January-August 2016, the trend of reduction in state and municipal debt, which has reached 35% of the total tax and non-tax revenues of local budgets, has not demonstrated any significant increase. Current measures taken by the Government of the Russian Federation aimed at the reduction of budget expenditures, including financial support to the regions which provides up to 20% of expenditure obligations of subfederal budgets. Moreover, instead of reconsidering the existing mechanisms of income distribution to the regional level, the problem of budget imbalance of the RF subjects is solved by granting big public budget loans which are to be repaid to the federal treasury. Moreover, regional budgets are socially overburdened, which is caused by the need to ϔinance activities in the framework of the well-known “May” decrees of the President of the Russian Federation. It is obvious that without appropriate involvement of federal authorities in the socialization of costs will pose additional threats for the debt-ridden regional budgets. The paper presents the results of scientific inquiry of reserves for increasing financial support for local budgets in the form of inter-budgetary transfers from the federal budget. Analysis of tax administration of value added tax (VAT), state asset management efficiency, the use of budget surpluses and the state of the design discipline has identified significant opportunities to increase the federal budget supplies, estimated 12 trillion rubles or more a year, which in turn would provide additional financial support for the regions. Official data of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation, the Federal Treasury, Federal Tax Service of Russia, Federal State Statistics Service.