Russian Roulette: Russia's Economy in Putin's EraVaknin, Samuel
History
Russian Roulette: Russia's Economy in Putin's Era
Vaknin, Samuel
Putin, Vladimir Vladimirovich, 1952-; Russia (Federation) -- Politics and government -- 1991-
The regions are allowed to tax the property of organizations, sales,
real estate, roads, transportation, and gambling enterprises, and
regional license fees (all tax rates are set by the center, though).
Municipal taxes include the land tax, individual property, inheritance,
and gift taxes, advertising tax, and license fees.
The IMF notes that "more than 90 percent of sub-national revenues come
from federal tax sharing. Revenues actually raised by regional and
local governments account for less than 15 percent of their
expenditures". The federal government has also signed more than 200
special economic "contracts" with the richer, donor and exporting,
regions - this despite the constitutional objections of the Ministry of
Justice. This discriminating practice is now being phased out. But it
has not been replaced by any prioritized economic policies and
preferences on the federal level, as the OECD has noted.
One of Putin's first acts was to submit a package of laws to the State
Duma in May 2000. The crux of the proposed legislation was to endow the
President with the power to sack regional elected officials at will.
The alarmed governors forgot their petty squabbles and in a rare show
of self-interested unity fenced the bill with restrictions. The
President can fire a governor, said the final version, only if a court
rules that the latter failed to incorporate federal legislation in
regional laws, or if charged with serious criminal offenses. The
wholesale dismissal of regional legislatures requires the approval of
the State Duma. Some republics insist that even these truncated powers
are excessive and Russia's Constitutional Court is currently weighing
their arguments.
Putin then resorted to another stratagem. He established, two years
ago, by decree, a bureaucratic layer between centre and regions: seven
administrative mega-regions whose role is to make sure that federal
laws are both adopted and enforced at the local level. The presidential
envoys report back to the Kremlin but, otherwise, are fairly harmless -
and useless. They did succeed, however, in forcing local elections upon
the likes of Ingushetiya - and to organize all federal workers in
regional federal collegiums, subordinated to the Kremlin.
The war in Chechnya was meant to be another unequivocal message that
cessation is not an option, that there are limits to regional autonomy,
and that the center - as authoritative as ever - is back. It, too,
flopped painfully when Chechnya evolved into a second - internal -
Afghani quagmire.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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