Analysis of donor regions and recipient regions of Russia. “Donor needle”: Tatarstan could single-handedly feed a third of Russia’s regions. Purpose of providing subsidies

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Junior Director, Corporate and Sovereign Ratings Department

At the end of 2018, 70 Russian regions had their consolidated budgets executed with a surplus, and the aggregate surplus amounted to 510 billion rubles. These are record figures for at least the last 17 years.

Last year, a surplus of consolidated budgets was recorded in 38 regions. Until 2018, the maximum number of surplus consolidated budgets was achieved in 2006 - 54 regions. The minimum number of surplus regions was in 2013 – only 6.

The surplus of surplus consolidated budgets increased from 136.7 billion rubles in 2017 to 575.2 in 2018. The budget deficit decreased from -188.6 to -64.9 billion rubles.

For comparison: the worst year in terms of balancing consolidated budgets was 2013, when the aggregate deficit dropped to -642.0 billion rubles. The previous maximum of the aggregated surplus was in 2006 – then it reached 139.9 billion rubles.

The leaders in terms of the level of surplus of the region's consolidated budget (as a percentage of tax and non-tax revenues, NRR) were the budgets of the Republic of Dagestan and Sevastopol: 30.5 and 27.4% of NRR, respectively. These regions are characterized by a relatively low level of self-sufficiency: tax and non-tax revenues, which mainly come from the regional economy, amount to 32.6% in Dagestan and 35.2% in Sevastopol. Therefore, the budget surplus of these regions is largely due to subsidies from the federal budget. In other regions – leaders in terms of the ratio of “surplus to non-residential income” – the level of self-sufficiency is significantly higher (for example, in Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug-Yugra it reaches 94.8%). Therefore, the budget surplus in such regions was achieved largely thanks to their own strength (taxpayers operating in the regions).

In terms of absolute surplus of the consolidated budget, the leaders are Moscow (+61.5 billion rubles, or 2.7% of the total income) and the Tyumen Matryoshka regions, the total surplus of their consolidated budgets amounted to 123.8 billion rubles (36.8, 41.3 and 45.8 billion rubles from the Tyumen region, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug-Yugra and Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, respectively). Such a surplus in the consolidated budget of the Tyumen region is the merit of the “Cooperation” program, according to which KhMAO-Yugra and Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug transfer 29.5% of tax revenues to the budget of the Tyumen region. In 2018, these transfers amounted to 84.0 billion rubles. For the second year in a row, the consolidated budget of the Kemerovo region is being executed with a significant surplus: from 20.8 billion rubles (or 14.6% of the total income) in 2017, the surplus increased to 35.7 billion rubles (or 20.8% of the total income) at the end of 2018 .

The maximum level of deficit is in the consolidated budget of the Republic of Mordovia (-7 billion rubles, or -24.5% of the national budget). Let us note that, compared to last year, such budget execution can be called an “improvement of the situation” - in 2017, the consolidated budget deficit was -37.0% (-10.1 billion rubles). Initially (as of February 1, 2018), the consolidated budget of the republic provided for a deficit of 3.0 billion rubles. Actual NEDs at the end of 2018 were only 2.4% less than planned. Thus, the increase in the deficit to 7.0 billion rubles was due to an increase in expenses without a corresponding increase in own revenue sources.

The main factors behind the record surpluses are the growth of federal subsidies and profits in the mining sector, as well as the curbing of budget investments.

In 2018, the revenues of the consolidated budgets of Russian regions increased by 1.6 trillion rubles (15.2%). The largest contribution to the growth of total income was made by the increase in revenues from income tax (+577 billion rubles), personal income tax (+402 billion rubles) and federal subsidies of all types (+276 billion rubles). Since a significant part of federal subsidies is used to pay salaries to public sector employees, the contribution of subsidies to income growth is even higher - they are returned to the consolidated budgets in the form of personal income tax from the salaries of public sector employees.

The sectoral structure of income tax revenues has so far been published only as of 10/01/2018. Nevertheless, information for 9 months is sufficient to analyze the sectoral structure of tax revenue growth. The main increase in income tax revenues is concentrated in the oil and gas production sector (Table 2.1). Metallurgical enterprises also provided significant growth. These results were facilitated by fairly favorable external conditions in the relevant global markets, as well as the dynamics of the ruble exchange rate (including its weakening in the third quarter of 2018).

Table 2.1 Industry structure of the increase in income tax revenues to regional budgets for 9 months of 2018 relative to revenues for 9 months of 2017 (billion rubles).

In turn, the increase in personal income tax revenues is fairly evenly distributed between types of activities (Table 2.2)

Table 2.2 Industry structure of the increase in revenues from NFD to the consolidated budgets of the regions for 9 months of 2018 relative to revenues for 9 months of 2017 (billion rubles).

Source: calculations by Expert RA based on data from the Federal Tax Service of the Russian Federation

At the end of 2018, the total volume of subsidies of all types that the Federal Budget transferred to the regions exceeded 1 trillion rubles for the first time. A special feature of 2018 is that all Russian regions, including Moscow and the Tyumen region, received one or another subsidy. Moreover, the city of Moscow, with a volume of subsidies of 27.6 billion rubles, entered the top 7 regions in terms of the volume of subsidies received (Table 4). Most of the subsidies that were received by the Moscow city budget were to support measures to ensure budget balance. It is possible that the purpose of this subsidy is to partially compensate the Moscow budget for the costs of an additional transfer to the budget of the territorial compulsory health insurance fund, which in 2018 amounted to 31.0 billion rubles.

Table 3. Top 10 regions by volume of subsidies received (all types) in 2018.

Source: calculations by Expert RA based on data from the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation

The main increase in subsidies came from subsidies to ensure budget balance (Table 4). In fact, this type of subsidy is managed manually, in contrast to subsidies for equalizing budgetary sufficiency, which are calculated (based on estimates of the level of budgetary sufficiency and the budget expenditure index). Also in 2018, subsidies for partial compensation of additional expenses for increasing wages of public sector workers and other purposes increased - the increase in subsidies of this type amounted to 60.4 billion rubles. Moreover, judging by the distribution of this type of subsidies among recipient regions, the federal center both actually compensated for part of the costs of increasing wages for public sector workers and, in fact, compensated for the insufficient amount of subsidies that certain regions received to equalize budgetary security.

Table 4. Dynamics of federal subsidies to the consolidated budgets of the regions by type, billion rubles

The excess of expenses over income in the regions is covered with loans or subsidies from the federal budget. The distribution of these subsidies among Russian regions in 2019 (as in previous years) is a confusing and opaque process that is difficult to analyze even for specialists.

It is worth noting that in 2018, the amount of subsidies provided to the regions exceeded 1 trillion rubles.

What determines the size of subsidies?

There are several indicators or standards that the Russian government focuses on when distributing financial assistance to regions. The main ones of these indicators:

• Level of gross regional product (GRP) per capita. It determines subsidies for “equalization”. The lower the GRP, the more payments the subject receives.
• The size of the regional budget deficit. Subsidies for “balance” depend on it.
• The scale of the debt burden, i.e. the amount of debt of a constituent entity of the Russian Federation in absolute and relative figures.
• Region status. National republics within the Russian Federation can traditionally count on a larger volume of assistance from the central authorities than “ordinary” territories and regions.

In addition to the above indicators, the distribution of payments to Russian regions is influenced by many other factors. First of all, the political “weight” of the head of the subject and his personal relationships with senior federal officials matter. In addition to formal interbudgetary transfers (they are free and gratuitous), in Russia there are government loans, as well as “targeted” funds allocated to territories within the framework of various federal development programs, etc.

Amount of subsidies in 2019

The size of transfers between the federal and regional budgets is determined by the laws of the Russian Federation and is constantly adjusted by the government. The largest subsidies for “equalization” (the bulk of all interbudgetary assistance) are received by subjects with low GRP per capita. In particular, in 2019, the following territories were among the “leaders” in terms of the volume of such subsidies.

Source: Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation (preliminary data)

Subjects of the Russian Federation with high GRP per capita are not entitled to “equalization” subsidies. Among them are Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Republic of Tatarstan, Sakhalin, Sverdlovsk and Tyumen regions, Yamalo-Nenets and Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrugs. However, all these regions may receive other financial transfers and assistance from the federal budget.

In addition to subsidies for “equalization,” in Russia there are significant payments for “balance.” They depend on the expected size of the regional budget deficit and other indicators that the country’s authorities prefer not to decipher. The main recipients of this type of assistance have traditionally been Chechnya and Crimea.

A number of Russian regions, in an attempt to finance their expenses, resort to loans, both government and commercial. Government loans are also provided to subjects by the federal government, but unlike gratuitous grants, they are paid and theoretically subject to repayment after a certain period. According to a well-known expert on regional politics in Russia, professor at Moscow State University N.V. Zubarevich, the receipt of preferential government loans by the authorities of the constituent entities has long turned into “fights without rules.”

If a region cannot pay its debts, it introduces the so-called. "treasury surveillance" In fact, this means external management of the finances of such bankrupt territories by the federal authorities. In 2018, “treasury surveillance” was introduced in Khakassia and the Kostroma region. Even earlier, in 2015, the authorities of the Novgorod region refused to repay a large loan to a commercial bank, which required the intervention of the central government.

Karelia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Mordovia, Khakassia and Kostroma region had the highest debt burden in 2018. For all these regions, the total amount of debt exceeds their total income, taken without taking into account federal assistance.

The Russian Ministry of Finance has published a list of regions receiving subsidies to equalize budgetary security in 2020 (Order of the Russian Ministry of Finance dated November 15, 2019 No. 1032). As in 2019, 72 subjects of the Russian Federation were recognized as subsidized. Such regions do not have the right to enter into agreements on cash services for the execution of regional and municipal budgets by the regional executive authority.

The regions that do not receive subsidies still include the Kaluga, Leningrad, Moscow, Samara, Sakhalin, Sverdlovsk and Tyumen regions, the Republic of Tatarstan, the federal cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg, the Nenets, Khanty-Mansi and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrugs.

The order also contains lists of regions in whose budgets the share of subsidies during two of the last three financial years exceeded 10% or 40% of their own revenues of the consolidated budget. The list of the latter has not changed compared to 2019. And four regions were added to the ten percent subsidized regions - Astrakhan, Vladimir, Saratov and Smolensk. In regions with a large share of subsidies, measures will be taken to improve the efficiency of using budget funds.

Another list of regions presented in the budget includes those entities in whose budgets the share of transfers during the same period did not exceed 20% of their own income. For 2020, 48 regions are included in it - two regions less than in 2019 (Vologda and Novgorod regions are excluded). The regions indicated in this list have the right to place budget funds on bank deposits.

70 federal subjects ended 2018 with a budget surplus

Subsidies to the regions from the federal center in 2018 for the first time exceeded 1 trillion rubles, Expert RA estimated. At the same time, subsidies provided a record surplus in the vast majority of regions

Photo: Ilya Pitalev / RIA Novosti

The volume of subsidies that the federal center issued to Russian regions in 2018 for the first time exceeded 1 trillion rubles, follows from data from the Ministry of Finance and calculations from the Expert RA agency (available from RBC).

How many subsidies did Russian regions receive?

The amount of subsidies provided reached 1.035 trillion rubles. A year earlier it was 759 billion rubles, and before that - 656 billion rubles. “A feature of 2018 is that all Russian regions received some kind of subsidies, including Moscow and the Tyumen region [the richest]. Moreover, Moscow with a volume of subsidies of 27.6 billion rubles. entered the top 7 regions in terms of the volume of subsidies received,” Alexander Shurakov, junior director of the corporate and sovereign ratings department at Expert RA, told RBC.

Almost half of the entire increase in subsidies in 2018 (136 billion out of 277 billion rubles) came from ensuring budget balance, which is managed “manually” in contrast to subsidies to equalize budgetary security, calculated using a special formula, the analyst notes. By 60 billion rubles. compensation for the costs of increasing salaries of public sector employees has increased. Last year, the authorities introduced the minimum wage and the cost of living, and also continued to index the salaries of public sector employees according to the May 2012 decrees, and the burden of increasing the salaries of doctors, teachers, etc. in regional (not federal) institutions it fell, respectively, on the subjects.

“Receiving subsidies to equalize budgetary security is subject to a number of conditions: previously they were simply given, but now regions take on obligations, and highly subsidized regions take on even more obligations. Grants to ensure balance are a tool that is used during the year when the region declares some problems,” says Andrey Chernyavsky, leading expert at the Development Center Institute of the Higher School of Economics. “In previous years, there was a lot of politics in these transfers. We can assume that the same thing happened this year. This is similar to manual control mode,” the expert believes.

How does this affect budgets?

“At the end of 2018, 70 Russian regions had their consolidated budgets executed with a surplus, and the aggregate surplus amounted to 510 billion rubles. These are record figures for at least the last 17 years,” says Shurakov. For comparison: in 2017 in Russia there were only. The surplus of all regional budgets reached 510 billion rubles. against a deficit of 52 billion rubles. a year earlier.

If for the federal budget the surplus or deficit is assessed as a share of GDP for the year, then a different methodology applies to the regions: the surplus or deficit is compared with the volume of their own income (tax and non-tax revenues excluding assistance from the federal budget). The leaders in terms of surplus in 2018 were Dagestan (30.5% of income) and Sevastopol (27.4%), but this is largely due to the low level of self-sufficiency. The top five most surplus regions also included the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Kemerovo and Volgograd regions, whose level of independence is much higher.

The highest budget deficit was recorded in (24.5% of income), Khabarovsk Territory (10.8%) and Jewish Autonomous Region (6.9%).

“The situation is new. The volume of public debt, but at the same time it remained quite high for some regions. We live with a surplus, but at the same time we have large loans,” says Vladimir Klimanov, head of the department of state regulation of economics at the Institute of Social Sciences of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.

At the same time, the increase in expenses for public sector salaries, which should grow in accordance with the May 2012 decrees, did not have a significant negative impact on regional budgets, points out Alexander Shurakov. “In general, the wage fund for May state employees, taking into account social contributions, increased by 532 billion rubles in 2018. But since part of these expenses “returns” to regional budgets in the form of personal income tax, the net increase in expenses for payroll and social contributions amounted to approximately 479 billion rubles,” he explains.

Investments decline ahead of new May decree

The record surplus in the regions was ensured not only by subsidies, but also by the authorities saving on budget investments. Their share in the expenditures of consolidated regional budgets in 2018 was only 10.8%. It was higher in 2015-2016, when the economy was in recession or stagnation, and also in 2017. In nominal terms, the regions did not reduce investments, but their expenses grew, which also reduced the share of investments in them, Shurakov explains.

“If the proportions of previous years had been maintained, the volume of budget investments would have been approximately 240 billion rubles. higher (and the budget surplus, accordingly, lower). The main direction of budget investments is investments in road infrastructure,” the analyst points out.

The regions' workload will increase due to the implementation of President Vladimir Putin's new May decree. Of 25.7 trillion rubles. expenditures on national projects for regional budgets 4.9 trillion rubles. First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov said that these expenses will mainly be covered by federal transfers, and the regions themselves will receive 2-3% of expenses. In return, regions subscribe to KPIs for the implementation of national projects.

Now the regions have less and less freedom, and subsidies and subsidies are given under increasingly stringent conditions, says Andrei Chernyavsky. Regions are squeezed - they prefer to have a surplus budget and reduce debt as much as possible, he adds.

In 2018, the majority of Russian regions continue to remain subsidized. Most often, subsidies to Russian regions are artificial, making it much easier for the central government to manage individual parts of the country. By taking the majority of taxes into the federal treasury, the federal government makes governors completely dependent. Regions are subsidized by the all-Russian treasury quite unevenly. The amount of the subsidy depends on how much money the region itself can earn. Subsidies to Russian regions in 2018 - principles of calculation, table of regions with the exact amount of subsidies.

How subsidies are distributed to Russian regions in 2018

The principles by which the federal government distributes subsidies to the regions change quite often. In 2018, the eleventh method of subsidizing regions is in effect.

However, the general essence does not change. The calculation of subsidies is based on the so-called financial security of the region per capita. The region's budget must include a certain minimum amount of funds for each resident.

The regional budget, relatively speaking, should not be less than an amount equal to the number of residents multiplied by a certain amount in rubles.

The amount of funds for each resident of the region varies for different republics or regions of the country. For example, in regions such as Kamchatka, Chukotka or Yakutia, the budget needs to include many times more funds for each resident simply because the cost of budget services that all residents of Russia receive is many times higher here.

In order to calculate the exact amount of subsidies for the region, the federal government calculates the approximate amount of funds that the region can collect for its benefit from local businesses and thereby fill its own budget. The funds missing to financial security per capita will constitute the amount of subsidies for the region.

The absolute majority of them are subsidized regions in Russia - 73 out of 85.

At the same time, subsidies are distributed very unevenly. Five regions receive 30% of all federal subsidies. These are Dagestan, Sakha Yakutia, Kamchatka and Altai territories, as well as the Chechen Republic.

13 regions will receive exactly half of all federal subsidies. That is, the same number as 60 other Russian federal subjects.

Only large industrial regions and republics like Tatarstan or the Sverdlovsk region, oil-producing regions like the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, as well as Moscow and St. Petersburg, which collect huge taxes from millions of residents and local businesses, are not included in the subsidized regions.

Photo: pxhere.com

Subsidies for the regions in 2018: to whom and how much

The following table contains the exact amounts of subsidies for specific Russian regions.

It is worth keeping in mind that the given figures are disingenuous in their own way and do not reflect all the nuances of the level of subsidies in a particular region. Thus, Dagestan always leads in this ranking, largely due to the high number of residents living here (more than three million people). However, the percentage of the budget formed through subsidies is not as high here as in Chechnya.

The Chechen Republic, although it ranks fifth in the ranking of subsidized regions, is the most dependent on subsidies. 84% of the republic's budget is formed from subsidies and other revenues from the federal treasury. The budget of the Republic of Crimea is formed from subsidies by 67%, although Crimea is “Only” in eighth place in the ranking.