Damage to public legal institutions as a category of financial law

The article is devoted to the problems associated with the changes made to the draft of the new version of the Budget Code of the Russian Federation concerning the assessment of the severity of violations of the budget legislation for the purpose of administrative or criminal liability measures. The article deals with the issues of improving the conceptual apparatus, including the term “damage to public legal institutions”. The comparative analysis of categories “harm”, “loss” and “damage” is carried out. An attempt is made to define the concept of “damage to public legal institutions” as a category of financial (budget) law. The issues of delimitation of violations of the budget legislation from the shortcomings in the activities of public authorities and local selfgovernment, leading to inefficient use of budgetary funds. It is concluded that it is necessary to include in the new edition of the Budget Code such categories as “violations and shortcomings associated with the use of budgetary funds”, “inefficient use of budgetary funds”, “damage to public legal institutions”, as well as the development of a special method of calculating the damage to public legal institutions.