Peculiarities of the financial and legal regime of the pension system in the Russian Federation

The authors study the foreign practices of financial assurance of pension payments as compared to the acting pension legislation of the Russian Federation in the context of its ability to ensure life worth living for Russian citizens of retiring age. The article reveals the manner of financing retirement pension payments, required by the legislation of the Russian Federation (insurance and funded components of retirement pension) on the basis of the financial mechanism of compulsory pension insurance. The article justifies the directions of developing the financial assurance of pension payments in Russia and alternative prospects. Today the pension systems of almost all countries experience large financial strain, first of all, because of the increase in the life expectancy of people and consequent increase in the number of pensioners in comparison to the number of working population. If in 1950 the average life expectancy on the Earth accounted for 47 years, in 2010 it numbers 69 years. In 1998 the number of pensioners in developed countries exceeded the number of children, and by 2050 these rates are expected all over the planet. Because of the changes in demographic situation countries are forced to expend most part of their GDP (Gross Domestic Product) on pension payments. Only individual and storage system remains active, because it is not impersonal public fund for cash resources, distributed on principles of wage-leveling and supplemented by the payments of working population. Within the framework of individual and storage system a working citizen gets the right to choose and the right to make independent financial decisions, and the amount of their wages directly influence their own pension accumulations. Furthermore, a worker is interested in receiving net cash, since the retirement insurance is allocated from officially accounted and taxed wages. Why is a citizen originally considered to be incompetent and incapable of savings accumulation for retirement? Why is the government responsible for fund formation for endowment period? Why there is no alternative mechanism of savings accumulation? This article gives detailed answers to these questions.