The White House is completing a unified system of digital accounting for benefits

The White House is completing a unified system of digital accounting of money that the budget injects into stimulating the economy and adapting it to new conditions. The Ministry of Finance yesterday published a draft of the government’s general requirements for formalizing decisions on the competitive provision of all budget subsidies for 1.9 trillion – from 2024 they will be accepted only through the Electronic Budget system, which will make it impossible for unexpected obligations of the federal treasury to arise. The requirements will also be extended to regions and municipalities, but here transparency will come from 2025. The Ministry of Economy published a draft government decree on the launch of the second stage of the GIS “Capital Investments” – it will have to keep records of the implementation of investment projects and the provision of benefits to businesses within the framework of the system of protection and encouragement of capital investments and also ensure the accounting and transparency of state support.

The dependence of the economy on state incentives in the context of its structural adaptation has intensified the work of the White House on reforming the expenditure side of budget finances: following the transition to a single model for the competitive distribution of all budget subsidies and grants in the form of subsidies (see Kommersant of May 24), the Ministry of Finance is also standardizing the requirements to the documents by which such benefits are issued, and the Ministry of Economy is expanding the electronic accounting of investment projects as part of the system for protecting and encouraging capital investments. All these measures should ensure transparency, predictability and efficiency of state support in the face of a deficit budget. If the volume of only federal subsidies is estimated by the Ministry of Finance at 1.9 trillion rubles. in 2023, then “information on the amount of such subsidies provided from the budgets of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and local budgets will be available … from January 1, 2025 and the start of their selection of recipients,” Kommersant was told in the department.

The draft decree published yesterday by the Ministry of Finance introduces general requirements for federal, regional and municipal regulations on subsidies, repealing the current government decree No. 1492 of September 18, 2020, which provides the main managers of budget funds with greater freedom in distributing benefits. The Ministry of Finance details the application of uniform principles for the competitive distribution of state support when making decisions on subsidies, monitoring and evaluating its effectiveness, the procedure for returning funds if subsidy goals are not achieved, and requires end-to-end reflection of data on the use of state funds in the GIS “Electronic budget” and on the portal of the budget system from January 1, 2024 of the year. At the same time, the only freedom, in comparison with federal managers of state funds, left to the regions is the choice whether to check their own decisions on granting benefits for compliance with general rules or immediately make a general decision on the preparation of regional and municipal acts on the federal model.

In the same logic, the draft resolution of the Ministry of Economy describes the launch from 2026 (trial operation – from 2025) of the second stage of the GIS “Capital Investments”, which is necessary for the operation of agreements on the protection and promotion of capital investments (SZPK) – a mechanism for increasing the investment activity of a business by stabilizing the implementation conditions investment projects and compensation to investors for part of the costs. It was assumed that investors would be able to receive subsidies and tax deductions through the Capital Investments GIS, but in the end, this function will be taken over by the Electronic Budget for subsidies and the Federal Tax Service for deductions.

The first stage of the GIS “Capital Investments” was launched in June 2022 with minimal functionality – the ability to conclude SZPK electronically. The second one will ensure monitoring of the fulfillment of the conditions of the SZPK (if they are not fulfilled, the state has the right to terminate the agreement, and the investor will lose benefits). The Ministry of Economy reports that the GIS will form a register of all agreements, including data on related contracts. Also, data from external information systems will be loaded there (these are the Federal Tax Service, the Federal Customs Service, the Ministry of Construction, the Electronic Budget and the Industry system). This will provide the state with data on investors, the status and results of projects, and on the provision of support measures. As a result, GIS will turn from a technical platform into a control system and will also allow evaluating the effectiveness of government spending.

Oleg Sapozhkov, Diana Galieva