On the design of corpus delicti of criminally punishable illegal entrepreneurship and the practical implications of determining its type

In the modern criminal law doctrine, there is a division of corpus delicti into material corpus delicti and formal corpus delicti, depending on the presence in them of signs of socially dangerous consequences and causal relationship between the act and the consequence. The literal interpretation of the disposition of Article 171 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation allowed most researchers to conclude that corpus delicti of such a crime as illegal entrepreneurship refers, according to this classification, to formal-material corpus delicti. Those who attribute corpus delicti of illegal entrepreneurship to material corpus delicti remain in the minority. On the one hand, the literal interpretation of the disposition prevents an unambiguous statement of the «materiality» of corpus delicti of illegal entrepreneurship on the basis of extracting a large income. On the other hand, law enforcement practice considers the sign of extracting a large income precisely as a socially dangerous consequence. Taking into account the presence of a similar corpus delicti in the legislation on administrative offenses, as well as the existence of the problem of qualifying an incomplete crime of formal corpus delicti, outwardly a purely doctrinal question about «formality» and «materiality» of corpus delicti of illegal entrepreneurship in fact reveals a number of consequences of a purely practical nature.