Regional component of tax policy: ways to support economic growth

The article discusses the extent of tax concessions provided by constituent entities of the Russian Federation for corporate income tax, corporate property tax and transport tax. Analysis of the dynamics and structure of tax benefits showed that the share of tax concessions provided in accordance with regional legislation is significantly less than those provided by federal legislation. At the same time, if the ratio of federal concessions to the amount of income tax in recent years has had a marked trend toward growth, the volume of regional concessions in relation to budget revenues has been quite stable. On the basis of grouping the subjects of the Russian Federation according to the actually provided concessions on income tax in the form of lowered regional rates, the authors describe types of tax policy in the regions. It is shown that the implementation of a sufficiently active tax policy allows some regions to reach the rates of economic growth higher than national average, but the dynamics of retail trade turnover as a reflection of the level of income of the population lags behind the average Russian indicators. A group of regions with strong industrial potential within the analyzed time interval pursued a moderately active tax policy at the highest rates of growth and investment activity and average values of retail turnover. The authors highlight a group of regions that conduct a passive tax policy, when despite the existence of the legislation that stipulates the provision of concessions to taxpayers, the concessions were not used. It is shown that the most active dynamics of retail trade turnover is observed in the group of regions with passive tax policy. Having compared the volumes of tax concessions provided by regions and the volumes of deficits of consolidated budgets of the Federation subjects, the authors conclude that even full cancellation of regional concessions does not help solve the problem of deficit in the group of regions with the most difficult budgetary situation. The study showed that the degree of activity of the regions in the formation and implementation of their own tax policy differs significantly more than the “resulting” indicators that reflect the rate of economic growth and the activity of the investment process.