The following issues are scheduled for discussion:

1. Implementing the measures envisaged by road-maps to improve the business climate developed under the National Entrepreneurial Initiative for Improving the Investment Climate in the Russian Federation

Road-maps in five areas have been approved on simplifying the procedure for issuing construction permits, on the customs administration, on supporting access to foreign markets, on property registration, and on facilitating access to the power infrastructure.

2. Draft federal targeted programme The Development of the Russian Judicial System 2013-2020

The programme is aimed at ensuring continuity in implementing the measures that began under the federal targeted programmes The Development of the Russian Judicial System 2002-2006 and The Development of the Russian Judicial System 2007-2012.

The choice of the programme’s goals and objectives is based on the provisions of the Long-Term Social and Economic Development Concept up until 2020, as well as the presidential executive orders On the Long-Term State Economic Policy and On the Major Guidelines for the Improvement of the State Administration System.

The programme is aimed at improving the administration of justice and improving the judicial protection of the rights and the legitimate interests of citizens and organisations.

3. Draft federal law On Introducing Amendments to the Federal Law On the Mandatory State Insurance of the Life and the Health of Servicemen, Citizens Summoned for Reserve Training, Junior Enlisted Personnel and Commanding Officers of the Internal Affairs Bodies, the State Fire Service, and the Bodies and the Employees of the Penal Enforcement Institutions and Bodies

The draft federal law establishes the insurer's responsibility for all of the insured for all of the insured occurrences for the term of the insurance contract signed by the entity.

 To this end, an amendment has been introduced to the preamble of the Federal Law On Mandatory State Insurance to include in the category of servicemen and citizens with this status for the purpose of insurance those citizens who have been discharged from the military service or reserve training, finished reserve training prior to the expiry of one year  after being discharged from military service , or were discharged from some other military training service. Mandatory state insurance is governed by a contract stipulating all of the substantive insurance terms, rights and obligations of the parties. The draft law envisages the Government's adoption of a model mandatory state insurance contract to guarantee the signing of mandatory state insurance contracts in strict accordance with the Federal Law On Mandatory State Insurance.

The draft federal law would also specify the provisions of the Federal Law On Mandatory State Insurance concerning the calculation of the insurance premium, and rule out the need to have the insurance tariff approved by the Ministry of Finance and introduce various requirements to the calculation of the insurance premium, including the use of a uniform method for calculating the insurance premium approved by the Ministry of Finance, the use in the calculations of a uniform insurance sum under the insurance contract in the amount of 2 million roubles per insured person, the accumulation by the insured and the insurers of the statistical data needed to calculate the insurance premium, and the sharing of this information in accordance with the law on state secrets.

4. Draft federal law On Introducing Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation Relating to Illegal Financial Operations

The draft federal law would introduce amendments to the federal laws On the State Registration of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs so far as it relates to expanding the list of grounds for withholding state registration, On Accounting so far as it relates to ensuring the preservation of accounting and other documentation when an organisation’s management changes, and On Insolvency (Bankruptcy) so far as it relates to establishing the financial liability of individuals controlling the debtor,  of the debtor's CEO and the members of the liquidation commission whose actions led to bankruptcy.

The draft also introduces amendments to the Civil Code so far as it relates to establishing the timeframe for the liquidation of a legal entity upon the decision of the founders or an authorised government body, and to the Tax Code and the Law On Tax Agencies so far as it relates to  specifying the authorities of the tax agencies. Thus, the draft would add to the Tax Code a provision on imposing taxes and levies if the liquidation commission fails to comply with the duty of paying taxes and levies that arises after a decision on the voluntary liquidation of an organisation has been adopted based on civil legislation.

Amendments are also introduced to enable tax agencies to obtain data on the existence of the accounts of individuals, as well as an amendment that would make it a requirement for a tax-paying organisation to receive postal dispatches at its address as indicated in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. These amendments have been prompted by the need to prevent taxpayers from giving false addresses, which hinders correspondence with them and the delivery of tax agency documents. 

The draft also introduces amendments to the Federal Law On Counteracting Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism aimed at preventing illegal financial operations in line with the new recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) adopted in February 2012. Thus, for example, the list of organsations obliged to comply with the law will expand and a list of operations subject to mandatory control will be introduced.

The federal laws On Operational and Investigative Activities and On Banks and Banking will include new provisions granting operational and investigative agencies the right, on the basis of a court ruling, during their activities to access information containing the banking secrets.

In accordance with the FATF recommendations that came into force in February 2012, provisions will be added to the Criminal Code that envisage the confiscation of revenues from economic crimes optimising the liability for money laundering, as well as for socially dangerous violations of the law consisting of trans-boundary movements of currency assets

The draft law would also criminalise illegal movement across the EurAsEC Customs Union customs border of cash in the Russian currency and/or in foreign currency, as well as traveller’s checks and foreign or domestic securities.

Some amendments, including those of a legal and technical character, will be introduced to the Criminal Procedural Code and the Code on Administrative Offences. Thus, to ensure that residents timely and fully submit the documents stipulated under the Federal Law On Currency Regulation and Currency Control to the tax agencies, the draft law will increase the fine for failing to submit such documents.

The draft also introduces amendments to the Code on Administrative Offences that expand the list of actions that may be seen as grounds for instituting administrative proceedings. Thus, for example, pursuant to the Federal Law On Insolvency (Bankruptcy), the receiver is vested with broad authority to manage the legal entities and individual entrepreneurs with regard to whom bankruptcy proceedings have been instituted. These authorities include disposing of a debtor’s property, challenging transactions, filing lawsuits for subsidiary liability, and revealing fictional or deliberate bankruptcy and distributing funds among creditors.

5. Draft federal law On Introducing an Amendment to Article 3¹of the Federal Law On Introducing Amendments to Part Two of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation and Certain Other Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation

The draft law leaves in place the current procedure of taxing incomes through insurance payments under voluntary long-term life insurance contracts concluded before January 1, 2008 on which employers have paid or are presently paying insurance premiums for their employees both before and after January 1, 2008.

According to the draft law, the individual income tax sums withheld by employers as insurance premiums paid for their employees before January 1, 2008 will be subject to redemption under the procedure stipulated by Article 231 of the Tax Code, which will rule out the disproportionate taxation of the incomes of individuals under long-term life insurance contracts regardless of the timeframe of the payment of the insurance premiums under such contracts.

6. Draft federal law On Introducing Amendments to the Federal Law On the Protection of Competition

The draft law will drop the notification-based monitoring of various economic M&A deals, viz.:

• Actions to create a commercial organisation through the merger of commercial organisations if the total value of assets on the latest balance book or the total proceeds from the sale of goods during the calendar year preceding the year of the merger of the commercial organisations whose activities terminate as a result of the merger exceeds 400 million roubles;
• Actions of incorporation by a commercial organisation of one or several other commercial organisations if the total value of the assets of these organisations according to the latest balance sheet or their total proceeds from the sale of goods in the calendar year preceding the year of incorporation exceeds 400 million roubles;
• Actions to establish a financial organisation through a merger of financial organisations if the total value of the assets according to the latest balance sheets of the financial organisations whose activities are terminated as a result of the merger does not exceed the value fixed by the Government;
• Actions of incorporation with a financial organisation of one or several financial organisations if the total value of the assets of these organisations according to the latest balance sheet  does not exceed the value fixed by the Government;
• Deals stipulated in the Federal Law On the Protection of  Competition to acquire stakes/shares, rights and/or property if the total value of the assets according to the latest balance sheet or the total proceeds from the sale of the goods of the individual acquiring stakes/shares, rights and/or property and of his(her) group of individuals,  and the total value of the assets of individual whose stakes/shares and/or property and/or rights with regard to this property are acquired and of his/her  group of individuals for a calendar year preceding the year when such deals or other actions  had been performed exceeds 400 million roubles and whereas the total value of assets,  according to the latest balance sheet, of the individual whose stakes/shares and/or property and/or rights with regard to this property are acquired and of his/her  group of individuals  exceeds 60 million roubles;

• Deals of incorporation with a commercial organisation of a financial organisation if the value of the assets of the financial organisation according to the latest balance sheet exceeds the value fixed by the Government;

• Deals stipulated under the Law on the Protection of  Competition to acquire stakes/shares, rights and/or assets of a financial organisation if the value of its assets according to the latest balance sheet exceeds the value fixed by the Government.

7. Introducing amendments to Government Resolution No 269 of  March 30, 2012

The Government resolution On Additional Requirements to Participants in Placing Orders to Procure Inventory for the Needs of Federal Executive Bodies was adopted on a pilot basis to perfect the mechanisms of supporting domestic enterprises in the awarding of the state order and is aimed at supporting domestic enterprises producing worsted fabric.

Under the draft resolution, goods, materials and components originating from the Republic of Belarus are subject to the same regime as goods, materials and components originating from Russia.

8. Distributing subsidies to the constituent entities of the Russian Federation in support of measures to balance the budgets of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation in 2012

The draft directive will approve subsidies in support of balancing the budgets of constituent entities in the amount of 3.7 billion roubles to be distributed among 33 constituent entities.

The largest subsidies for these purposes will be allocated to the Rostov Region (479.5 million roubles), the Nizhny Novgorod Region (466.5 million roubles), and the Belgorod Region (251.3 million roubles), and the smallest subsidies to the Magadan Region (2.4 million roubles), the Republic of Altai (2.9 million roubles), and the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania (3.7 million roubles).

9. Distributing subsidies in 2012 from the federal budget to the budgets of constituent entities of the Russian Federation to compensate for part of the cost of paying interest on investment loans obtained from Russian lending institutions to develop fisheries

The draft directive approves the redistribution in 2012 of subsidies to compensate for part of the cost of paying interest on investment loans  obtained from Russian lending institutions to acquire select fish materials, technology and equipment, and to build, refurbish and modernise industrial complexes for farming fish and domesticated fish species and breeds.

Subject to redistribution are subsidies in the amount of 59.1 million roubles that failed to be used by 10 constituent entities. These funds will be made available to the entities that have the additional need for subsidies for the aforementioned purposes.   

10. Introducing amendments and additions to the distribution of subsidies from the federal budget to the budgets of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation for the co-financing of state (municipal) property capital construction under the Automobile Roads sub-programme of the Development of the Russian Transport System (2010-2015) federal targeted programme

The Federal Law On Introducing Amendments to the Federal Law On the Federal Budget for 2012 and the 2013-2014 Planning Period envisages additional subsidies for the co-financing of capital construction projects under the Automobile Roads sub-programme of the Development of the Russian Transport System (2010-2015) federal targeted programme in the amount of 49,262,902,600 roubles.

The draft directive proposes to:

• increase the subsidies granted to the budget of the Republic of Mordovia for the joint financing of the construction of the third stage of the first start-up complex of the detour in the city of Saransk by 600,000,000 roubles;
• increase the subsidies granted to the budget of the Moscow Region for the joint financing of the construction and the reconstruction of a number of road facilities by 11,992,000,000 roubles;
• increase the subsidies granted to the budget of the Novosibirsk Region to finance the construction of the bridge across the River Ob on the Olovozavodsky Site in the city of Novosibirsk by 1,750,000,000 roubles;
• reduce the subsidies granted to the administration of the Krasnodar Territory for the joint financing of the construction and the reconstruction of automobile roads as part of the Olympic Facilities Construction and the Development of the City of Sochi as a Mountain Climatic Health Resort Programme by 1,780,359,500 roubles. The subsidies will be used to finance the capital repairs of and the current maintenance of federal roads that carry the cargo required for the preparation of the Twenty-Second Winter Olympic Games and the Eleventh Paralympic Games in Sochi in 2014;
• grant subsidies to the budget of the Volgograd Region for the joint financing of the continued construction of the second start-up complex of the bridge across the Volga River in Volgograd in the amount of 4,000,000,000 roubles;
• grant subsidies to the budget of the Kemerovo Region for the joint financing of the construction of the Novosibirsk-Leninsk/Kuznetsky – Kemerovo - Yurga automobile road on the Leninsk/Kuznetsky - Kemerovo stretch in the amount of 750,000,000 roubles;
• grant subsidies to the budget of the Leningrad Region for the construction of the flyover at the intersection of railway tracks and a public automobile road Approach to the City of Gatchina-2 in the amount of 440 000 000 roubles;
• grant subsidies to the budget of the Novgorod Region for the construction of the bridge across the Volkhov River in Veliky Novgorod in the amount of 2,000,000,000 roubles by redistributing budget allocations from the building and the reconstruction of sections of federal public roads and in the amount of 3,570,902,600 roubles through the redistribution of the financing from the Reconstruction and Development of Domodedovo Airport project;
• grant subsidies to the budget of the Ryazan Region for the joint financing of the construction of the first stage of the Northern Detour in the City of Ryazan in the amount of 2,400,000,000 roubles;
• grant subsidies to the budget of the Samara Region for the joint financing of the building of the Kirovsky Bridge across the Samara River in the amount of 1,000,000,000 roubles;
• grant subsidies to the budget of the Saratov Region for the joint financing of the construction of the bridge across the navigable canal in the city of Balakovo in the amount of 1,000,000,000 roubles;
• grant subsidies to the budget of the Sverdlovsk Region for the joint financing of the reconstruction of the Karpinsk-Kytlym automobile road on the territory of the Karpinsk urban administrative area in the Sverdlovsk Region in the amount of 300,000,000 roubles;
• grant subsidies to the Moscow budget for the joint financing of the construction and the reconstruction of certain road facilities needed to improve the transport situation in the city in the amount of 15,100,000,000 roubles;
• grant subsidies to the budget of St Petersburg for the joint financing and the reconstruction of a number of road facilities needed to improve the transport situation in the city in the amount of 3,060,000,000 roubles;
• grant subsidies to the budget of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area-Yugra for the joint financing of the construction of the bridge across the Vakh River on the Nizhnevartovsk-Strezhevoy stretch of the automobile road in the amount of 1,300,000,000 roubles.

11. Distributing subsidies in 2012  from the federal budget to the budgets of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation to finance organisational measures to provide citizens with drugs, as well as on introducing amendments to the distribution of subsidies granted in 2012 from the federal budget to the budgets of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation for the co-financing of the expenditure commitments of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation connected with the implementation of measures to develop the blood service

The drafts submitted envisage the distribution in 2012 of:

subsidies for organisational measures to provide citizens with drugs intended to treat patients with malignancies of the lymphoid, hematogenetic and similar tissues, hemophilia, mucoviscidosis, hypophysical nanism, Gaucher’s disease, multiple sclerosis and after organ and/or tissue transplantation in the amount of 1,090,274,300 roubles;

• subventions for financing the rendering to certain categories of citizens the social service of provision with the necessary drugs and medical supplies, as well as dietary foods, for disabled children. The total amount of subventions was 29,458,601,400 roubles, which exceeds the amount of subventions established in 2012 November by 322,275,000 roubles due to the increase in the number of citizens entitled to the social services package (by 133,379);
• subsidies for the joint financing of the expenditure commitments of the constituent entities connected with measures to develop the blood service in the amount of 2.55 billion roubles. These measures are being implemented in 10 constituent entities that meet the established criteria and terms, including the existence of budget allocations of the constituent entity for these purposes;
• any other inter-budgetary transfers to finance certain mandates in the provision of drugs for the population of restricted administrative and territorial entities served by federal budget-financed healthcare institutions under the jurisdiction of the Federal Medical and Biological Agency in the amount of 231,386,500 roubles. The amount of transfers is based on the number of individuals (81,566) entitled to getting prescription drugs free of charge or at a 50% discount.

12. Distributing in 2013 federal budget subsidies, subventions and inter-budgetary transfers to the budgets of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, the budget of the city of Baikonur and the federal state budget-supported institutions for the exercise of certain powers in the field of healthcare and the provision of drugs

The Ministry of Healthcare has submitted 16 draft directives on the distribution from the federal budget in 2013 of:

1)   subsidies to the budgets of constituent entities for:

•  organisational measures to provide citizens with drugs for the treatment of patients with malignancies of the lymphoid, hematogenetic and similar tissues, hemophilia, mucoviscidosis, hypophysical nanism, Gaucher’s disease, multiple sclerosis and after organ and/or tissue transplantation (1.1 billion roubles);
• financing of measures of prenatal diagnosis of child developmental disorders (850 million roubles);
• procurement of equipment and disposable materials for neonatal and audiological screening at state and municipal healthcare institutions (614.4 million roubles);
• joint financing of the expenditure commitments of the constituent entities connected with:
• the implementation of measures to improve the organisation of medical assistance to road accident victims (5.9 billion roubles);
• measures to develop the blood service (2.8 billion roubles);
• measures aimed at screening the population to reveal tuberculosis cases, to treat tuberculosis patients and to finance preventative measures (1 billion roubles);
• the implementation of measures aimed at improving medical assistance to cancer patients (6.4 billion roubles);
• financing the procurement of diagnostic equipment to reveal and monitor the treatment of HIV and Hepatitis B and C  patients (1.4 billion roubles);
• the implementation of measures to promote a healthy lifestyle among the population, including the reduction of alcohol and tobacco consumption (520 million roubles);

2)   subsidies to federal state budget institutions under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Healthcare to finance:

• measures introduced by these institutions aimed at developing neonatal surgery (60 million roubles, including undistributed balance in the amount of 30 million roubles);
• the creation of training simulation centres (150 million roubles);
• the implementation of a complex of measures to nurse newborns with low and extremely low body mass (40 million roubles);

3) subventions to the budgets of constituent entities and the budget of the city of Baikonur to finance the rendering to certain categories of citizens of the social services to provide the necessary drugs and medical supplies and dietary foods for disabled children (27.7 billion roubles);

4) inter-budgetary transfers:

• to the budgets of constituent entities and the budget of the city of Baikonur to exercise certain mandates in the provision of drugs (14 billion roubles);

to the budgets of the constituent entities to finance:

• the procurement of antiviral drugs for the prevention and treatment of HIV and Hepatitis B and C patients  (14 billion roubles);
• the procurement of computer and network equipment with licensed software to implement measures to develop the blood service (600 million roubles).

13. Distributing in 2012 other inter-budgetary transfers from the federal budget to the budgets of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation to pay the stipends of the President of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Russian Federation to undergraduate and post-graduate students studying in educational programmes corresponding to the priority areas of modernisation and technological development of the Russian economy  

The draft directives propose to distribute:

• 112,000 roubles between the budgets of the Moscow Region and the city of Moscow to pay presidential stipends to two students at higher professional educational institutions;
• 168,000 roubles between the budgets of the Republic of Tatarstan, the Moscow Region and the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area-Yugra to pay the stipends of the Government of the Russian Federation to four undergraduate students and one post-graduate student of higher and continuing professional educational institutions.

14. Establishing a limit on the size of the staff of the Ministry of Economic Development and introducing amendments to certain acts of the Government of the Russian Federation

The draft would vest the Ministry of Economic Development with new functions connected with Russia's World Trade Organisation membership and increase the central staff of the Ministry by making corresponding cuts to the staffs of the territorial bodies of the Federal Service of State Registration Cadastre and Cartography.

Moscow, December 12, 2012  

*Press releases of the Department of Press Service and Information are based on the materials submitted by the federal executive bodies for discussion by the Government meeting.