Legal regulation of the cost of legislation

Orlov Dmitry Viktorovich ORCID: 0000-0003-0485-6140 PhD in Law Postgraduate Student of the Research Department of the Nizhniy Novgorod academy of the Ministry of the Interior of Russia 603950, Russia, Nizhny Novgorod region, Nizhny Novgorod, Ankudinovskoe highway, 3 dm_orlov@rambler.ru

During a difficult international situation, any State has to actively rebuild itself and look for alternative ways leading to international cooperation, economic development, maintaining social stability and prosperity of the state as a whole. There are many challenges on the way to achieving this goal, some of which are long-term in nature, and therefore quite global and problematic in terms of achievement. It is necessary to raise the standard of living of the population, create employment opportunities and self-realization, improve conditions for high-quality education, spiritual and cultural development and self-development.

All of the above directly depends on the quality of the established rules of conduct, leading to a socially useful result and at the same time adequate in terms of costs. The problem of redundancy of regulatory settings, duplication, intentional or unintentional insufficiency of legal regulation, low efficiency at high costs lead to the question of overestimated cost of legal regulation. How much does it cost to solve a certain issue for the state and other subjects of public relations? What can or should the state or society sacrifice in order to regulate the desired social relations? Is the price adequate for the result that is planned to be achieved with the help of legal regulation (or in case of refusal of such regulation) of specific public relations? The answers to these questions can partly be obtained based on the analysis of trends embodied in the fixed rules of behavior.

The study of the cost of legal regulation is reflected in some scientific works of a general and special nature. Thus, the study of the effectiveness of legal regulation took place in the works of: A. A. Abramova, V. M. Baranova, A.V. Malko, E. A. Mamaya, S. I. Punchenko, Yu. A. Tikhomirov, V. A. Tolstik, F. N. Fatkullina, T. Ya. Khabrieva, etc.

Certain aspects of the study of the assessment of regulatory costs, including industry orientation, were the subject of study by A. I. Abramova, S. V. Bazhanov, S. M. Nikityuk, O. B. Raevskaya, etc.

Of particular scientific interest is the dissertation research of S. M. Nikityuk (Nikityuk S. M. The category of "value" in the legal regulation of public relations : dissertation ... cand. Jurid. sciences'. Vladimir, 2008. 174 p.), which analyzes the essence and specifics of the economic component of the mechanism of socio-regulatory regulation, the importance of legal categories in regulating public relations, the general characteristics of value as a legal category, determines the directions of use of this category in standard-setting activities.

The dissertation research of S. V. Bazhanov is also important (Bazhanov S. V. The cost of criminal proceedings : dis. ... Dr. yurid. sciences'. Nizhny Novgorod, 2002. 585 p.). The scientist analyzes in detail the formation of the institution of criminal procedure in Russian general criminal proceedings, the development of this institution in the Soviet period, examines the modern period, calculating the cost of criminal judicial proceedings, determining and classifying costs, while paying special attention to procedural costs. But this study, in addition to industry specifics and calculations of material costs in these matters, does not in any way assess the necessity and expediency of these costs, for example, from the position of redundancy of regulation of individual procedures.

The importance of O. B. Rayevskaya's research ^[1] is determined by the first significant attempt to develop a methodology for calculating the costs of adopting a regulatory legal act by the legislative body of a constituent entity of the Russian Federation.

In addition, a number of scientific studies are devoted to certain aspects of regulatory impact assessment, among which the works of D. O. Derman, V. V. Kolegov, A.V. Minaev and Yu. V. Truntsevsky are of the greatest interest.

Despite the importance of all the above-mentioned studies, no comprehensive scientific study of the cost of legal regulation, including its regulatory legal regulation, has been conducted before.

It is advisable to use dialectical, logical, comparative legal, formal legal and hermeneutic methods of cognition as research methods of normative legal regulation of the cost of legal regulation. The dialectical method will make it possible to determine the development of regulatory legal regulation and establish cause-and-effect relationships of the changes taking place. The logical research method will help to identify patterns and trends in the regulatory legal regulation of the cost of legal regulation. The comparative legal method is necessary for studying and comparing normative legal acts with each other in terms of establishing similarities and differences between acts, duplication of rules of conduct, as well as identifying gaps in legal regulation. Using the formal legal method, it is assumed to study definitions, such as, for example, financial and economic justification, as well as legal techniques for preparing a normative legal act and accompanying documents to it. The hermeneutical method will be used to interpret the normative establishment.

The importance, correctness and adequacy of expenses are often mentioned in the legal acts themselves. As indicated in the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated November 17, 2008 No. 1662-r "On the Concept of long-term socio-economic development of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2020", "A key role in this direction is played by changing the structure of expenditures of the budget system, since the current system of actual spending priorities does not meet the objectives innovative socially oriented development" (Federal Law of the Russian Federation. 2008. No. 47, Article 5489).

According to D. V. Dementiev, "Registers of expenditure obligations for the federal, regional and municipal levels should be ranked according to the degree of social importance of expenditures by coding the list of expenditures in budgetary legal acts. Such a "managerial accounting of the degree of priority of expenses will allow the most effective assessment of the results of financing expenses and will allow for the prompt and objective formation of a legal framework in the field of public finance" ^{[2, p. 219]}.

When studying the issue of regulatory regulation, it is appropriate to divide the costs of legal regulation into the costs associated with the preparation and adoption of regulatory legal acts and the costs associated with their implementation.

As for the first, there is no normative legal regulation of the issue of calculating costs for federal, federal subjects, as well as municipal law-making. In our opinion, this is due to the fact that law-making (or its individual stages and procedures) is a set of functions performed by certain individuals, each in its own part, and in most cases dominates this activity, essentially reducing the cost to payment for the work performed by this function.

We should not forget that the situation that is taking place now, with all its problems related to the quality of legal regulation and the requirements of efficiency in economic matters, matured gradually and reached its development at a time when the state began to undergo serious tests of sanctions and verification of complex economic and international relations.

In addition, the absence of the need to consider the "costs" of law-making procedures is due to the lack of formal consolidation of any responsibility for the quality of the developed and adopted norms. It is difficult not to agree with V. A. Tolstik's opinion that frequent changes in the law indicate a low professional level of the subject of lawmaking: "the legislator did not study social relations properly, did not identify patterns of social development, did not know the legal nature of things, committed negligence in formulating the text of the law" ^{[3, p. 235]}. In this regard, the scientist's proposal on the need to establish the responsibility of the legislator for a legal marriage seems quite logical and justified.

Control over the speed and quality of the preparation of the draft law is observed if the initiator of the bill is either the president or the person heading the ministry (department) – interested in the framework of the ongoing policy of resolving the issue.

Thus, the importance of calculating the costs of lawmaking is obvious. The problem in this case begins precisely with the appearance of an irrational idea of the bill. As V. M. Baranov writes: "It seems that such a powerful "gushing" of legislative ideas cannot but affect their quality, validity, and feasibility. It is known that fashion standards also apply to ideas. It is very dangerous if this kind of fashion penetrates into law-making. Then any means will be used to advertise the idea of a deliberately populist bill and justify it with scientific arguments" ^{[4, p. 31]}.

In the future, the entire mechanism of the legislative machine begins to work on the implementation of this idea and turning it into a bill, which initially may not have any future. In addition, when preparing a draft law, many related procedures do not have clear time limits, a clear amount of "normative material" being developed, and a clear criterion for the quality of its preparation. Preparation, discussion, and adoption of regulatory legal acts can take a significant period of time, and sometimes they do not reach the final line at all.

As statistics show, the ideas embodied in draft laws from deputies of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation and legislative (representative) bodies of the subjects of the Russian Federation turn out to be especially unpromising. For example, 30 bills received from the State Assembly – Kurultai of the Republic of Bashkortostan for the period from 2016 to February 2024 for various reasons did not reach the stage of signing by the President of the Russian Federation. The situation is similar with bills received from the Legislative Assembly of the Leningrad Region – 18 bills (for the period from May 2020 to February 2024), from the State Council of the Republic of Tatarstan – 12 bills (for the period from June 2021 to February 2024), from the Samara Provincial Duma and the Legislative Assembly of the Krasnodar Territory – 11 each draft laws. The rest of the subjects of the Russian Federation have better indicators, which is directly related to less activity in this direction (Information on the passage of bills and laws through the stages of the legislative process // https://sozd.duma.gov.ru/stat/subrfstad (date of application: 02/27/2024)).

The procedure for passing an unpromising draft law may also affect other parallel processes. In this regard, we draw attention to paragraphs 91(1)-91(6) of the subsection "Procedure for the preparation of draft normative legal acts necessary for the implementation of federal laws" of the Regulations of the Government of the Russian Federation, approved by Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 260 dated June 1, 2004 (NW RF. 2004. No. 23, art. 2313) (further – the Regulations of the Government of the Russian Federation), which establish the procedure for the preparation of regulatory legal acts necessary for the implementation of the draft federal law planned for adoption in the future. This procedure begins from the moment the act is submitted to the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation for consideration, and its stages are connected with the stages of passage of the draft federal law. In fact, we are talking about carrying out a large amount of legal work on the preparation of acts, the content of which has not yet been legally regulated. If the draft federal law is not adopted, this work will be carried out "in vain", with corresponding costs not only in terms of developing the bill, but also in terms of draft regulatory legal acts intended for its implementation. In addition, the content of the draft law at the stage of submission to the State Duma and at the stage of its signing may differ significantly, which means that the provisions of draft by-laws must also be changed and reviewed in a timely manner.

These provisions apply to projects that originate from the executive authorities and, of course, were adopted for a good purpose – to speed up the implementation of the provisions of the law as much as possible, but here it is necessary to take into account the likelihood of failure, and, accordingly, the costs associated with it.

Together, such situations determine the importance of the existence of a regulatory legal regulation of the issue of the cost of adopting a regulatory legal act or the cost of one of its procedures. In the same connection, it is also possible to talk about the importance of establishing responsibility, including material responsibility, which would lead to a significant reduction in ideas among subjects with the right to legislative initiative in the case of a procedural mechanism idling.

The situation with the expenditure of budgetary funds planned in connection with the implementation of the norms of the draft law is different. The legislator should know from which budget and to what extent the subjects of legal relations will need expenses, understand the proportionality of these expenses of social and economic benefit for the state and citizens.

Economic efficiency can be both forward-looking and retrospective. The forward-looking assessment takes place at the stage of preparation of the draft law, and a retrospective assessment of the normative act is carried out some time after its adoption. In this case, the legislator can determine the possibility of developing legislation in the necessary direction, predict a certain result ^{[5, p. 22]}.

An illustration of the retrospective assessment is the situation with the financing of the judicial system. The annual expenses for postal and telegraphic mailing alone amounted to about 7 billion rubles. The analysis revealed the inefficiency of these costs, and therefore the state began to introduce digital technologies and electronic document management into the judicial system ^{[6, p. 33]}.

The practice of normative consolidation of requirements in the modern period is reflected in a number of provisions on the preparation of accompanying documents, including those covering the issues of costs fixed in the current legislation.

Thus, Article 104 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, in addition to the list of subjects with the right of legislative initiative, contains a provision on the obligation to have an opinion of the Government of the Russian Federation, if the bill being introduced concerns the introduction or abolition of taxes, exemption from payment, issuance of government loans, changes in financial obligations of the state and other bills affecting budget expenditures. As stated in the Resolution of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation dated November 29, 2006 No. 9-P "In the case of checking the constitutionality of paragraph 100 of the Regulations of the Government of the Russian Federation", these "conclusions are a form of official information by the Government of the Russian Federation to the State Duma already at the initial stage of the legislative process about the possible consequences of the adoption of relevant bills, which is designed to facilitate adequate formation the will of the legislator expressed in the federal law" (Federal Law of the Russian Federation. 2006. No. 50, art. 5371).

According to paragraph 95 of the Regulations of the Government of the Russian Federation, the provided conclusion is submitted to the subject of the right of legislative initiative and to the State Duma before submitting draft laws to the State Duma.

Article 105 of the Regulations of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, approved by Resolution of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation dated January 22, 1998 No. 2134-II of the State Duma (NW RF. 1998. No. 7, Article 801) (hereinafter referred to as the Regulations of the State Duma) provides an exhaustive list of accompanying documents submitted when introducing a draft law on consideration, the implementation of which will require material costs, including financial and economic justification, as well as the above-mentioned conclusion of the Government of the Russian Federation. This list does not have a detailed substantive disclosure, and therefore may cause some problems in the preparation of relevant documents.

In addition, the wording and amount of information regarding the requirement for a package of accompanying documents and financial and economic justification for the draft law is contained in many legal acts regulating the legislative activities of other entities with the right of legislative initiative.

Paragraphs "c" and "d" of Part 1 of Article 142 of the Regulations of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, approved by Resolution of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation No. 33-SF of January 30, 2002 (NW RF. 2002. No. 7, Article 635) establishes the need to prepare a financial and economic justification in the event of a bill being submitted to the State The Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, the implementation of which will require material costs, as well as the need for a conclusion from the Government of the Russian Federation in the event of a bill on the introduction or abolition of taxes, exemption from payment, on the issue of government loans, on changing the financial obligations of the state, other bills providing for expenses covered by the federal budget.

Section VI of the Regulations of the Government of the Russian Federation establishes the legislative activity of the Government of the Russian Federation, which includes a number of provisions both regarding the meaningfully detailed requirements for the package of documents provided by the developers of draft federal laws – federal executive authorities and organizations (paragraph 84), and in relation to draft laws submitted by the Government of the Russian Federation to the State Duma with reference to the provisions of the relevant Regulations (paragraph 86). In accordance with paragraph 12 (1) of the Regulations on the Apparatus of the Government of the Russian Federation, the Department of Legislative Support and Regulatory Regulation of the Government of the Russian Federation cooperates with the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation in the preparation of draft federal laws, as well as conclusions, official reviews and amendments of the Government.

Paragraph 27 of the Regulation on the Legislative Activity of the Government of the Russian Federation, approved by the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated April 30, 2009 No. 389 "On measures to improve the legislative activity of the Government of the Russian Federation" (Federal Law of the Russian Federation No. 19, Article 2346) specifies exactly the same list of accompanying documents and in the same substantive volume as in paragraph 84 of the Regulations of the Government of the Russian Federation.

In paragraph 12 of the Basic Requirements for the concept and development of draft federal laws approved by Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 576 of August 2, 2001 (NW RF. 2001. No. 32, Article 3335), there is also duplication in terms of indicating the need to draw up a financial and economic justification in cases provided for by the Regulations of the Government of the Russian Federation.

The exception in terms of the content of the requirements for accompanying documents are acts indicating the relevant powers of the President of the Russian Federation (paragraph "d" Article 84 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation) and paragraph 5 of the Regulations on the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation, approved by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation dated April 6, 2004 No. 490 (NW RF. 2004. No. 15, 1395), establishing the powers of the Administration in the form of organizing the preparation of draft laws for their submission by the President of the Russian Federation.

In addition, an indication only of the power of legislative initiative is contained in Federal Constitutional Law No. 1-FKZ dated July 21, 1994 "On the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation" (RF Law No. 13, Article 1447) and in Federal Constitutional Law No. 3-FKZ dated February 5, 2014 "On the Supreme Court Of the Russian Federation" (Federal Law of the Russian Federation. 2014. No. 6, art. 550).

With regard to the preparation of drafts of subordinate regulatory legal acts, the provisions on the requirements for the draft document, as well as for accompanying documents and procedures for passing these documents are specified in the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated August 13, 1997 No. 1009 "On Approval of the Rules for the Preparation of Regulatory Legal Acts of Federal Executive Authorities and their State Registration" (NW RF. 1997. No. 33, article 3895). Paragraph 3(2) of the Rules for the Preparation of Regulatory Legal Acts of Federal Executive Authorities and their state Registration establishes a requirement to send, together with a draft act affecting the revenues and Expenditures of budgets of the budgetary system, a financial and economic justification to the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation to prepare an opinion on the financial consequences for the budgetary system in the event of appropriate decisions. Paragraph 3(3), in addition to referring to the obligation to draw up a financial and economic justification in the form established by the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, there is a definition of the concept of financial and economic justification, which means a description of the economic effect of the implementation of a regulatory legal act, based on the financial, economic and (or) statistical analysis of the current situation on decisions proposed for adoption by the draft regulatory legal act, forecasting the economic and other consequences of the implementation of such decisions, contains an assessment of the impact (including indirect) of the implementation of the draft regulatory legal act on the revenues and expenditures of the relevant budget of the budgetary system of the Russian Federation, legal entities and individuals, as well as depending on the content of the regulatory legal act includes calculations in monetary terms.

Please note that the same definition of the concept of "financial and economic justification", as well as a list of cases in which it is necessary to compile this document, is contained in paragraph 53 (1) of the Regulations of the Government of the Russian Federation.

As the analysis of draft federal laws shows, there are three interesting aspects concerning the issue of studying the costs of preparing draft laws in connection with the implementation of the norms of the proposed act. The first is the frequent practice of introducing a financial and economic justification with the draft law, which indicates the absence of changes in the budgets of the budgetary system, which runs counter to the established requirements of the provision of part 1 of Article 105 of the Regulations of the State Duma on the need to provide this accompanying document in case of proposed budget changes. That is, we are talking about additional requirements that are not specified in the current legislation. The second aspect is the brevity of the presentation of the financial and economic justification in the absence of changes in the budgets of the budgetary system, which is actually not drawn up in the form approved by the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation (although there is no direct indication of the use of any form in the Regulations of the State Duma). The third aspect is the frequent disregard when drawing up a financial and economic justification for the need to indicate changes in the financial situation of individuals, including indications in the document in the absence of such.

The rules for the preparation of a regulatory legal act are reflected in the regulations of ministries and departments at the federal level in accordance with the provisions of paragraph 6.1 of the Model Regulations on the Internal Organization of Federal Executive Bodies approved by Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 452 of July 28, 2005. One obvious example of this is the Order of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation dated October 30, 2017 No. 3776 "On Approval of the Regulations of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation" (Official Internet portal of legal information http://www.pravo.gov.ru , 11/21/2017). In the section  V the procedure for the preparation and adoption of regulatory legal acts of the Ministry in the implementation of regulatory regulation in the established field of activity has been established. The requirements for accompanying documents are similar to the federal provisions set out in paragraph 5.3. In addition, separate provisions contained in section VI specify the requirements for regulatory legal acts that are submitted to the Government of the Russian Federation with reference to the above-mentioned paragraphs of the Regulations of the Government of the Russian Federation.

As for other subjects of legislative initiative of draft federal laws – legislative (representative) bodies of the subjects of the Russian Federation, the mention of this right and its implementation may be completely absent or may be limited only to an indication of this right through the preparation of relevant resolutions of the legislative body with the attachment of all necessary documents, as for example in article 18 of the Regulations of the Legislative Assembly of the Perm Territory.

Another important aspect is the correctness of the preparation of the accompanying documents, including the financial and economic justification. Often, when preparing the concept of a draft law or a draft law, the subjects of legislative initiative have a problem with the correct calculation and correct design of this document. Difficulties arise due to the fact that this activity goes beyond the professional competence of most of these subjects. "Lacking the skills that require a sufficiently high level of special knowledge, the initiators of bills in most cases are unable to make the necessary financial calculations and establish the exact costs in connection with the bill being prepared" ^{[7, p. 60]}.

As O. B. Raevskaya writes, regarding the preparation of a financial and economic justification of draft laws in the field of cadastral relations: "... the developers of the draft law do not pay enough attention to this document. As a rule, such justification contains a message that the adoption of the law will not require additional expenses from the federal budget" ^{[1, p. 77]}. In this regard, the question sounds quite fair: "are the drafters of the concept of the bill able to provide a financial justification for the act and should they be required to do so?" (Legal technique: Textbook / ed. by V. M. Baranov. Moscow : Prospekt, 2021. p. 281).

Until recently, the question of the form and content was not specified by anything other than the Regulations of the Government of the Russian Federation. The relevant changes were introduced into this legal act only in 2013 by Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 819 (NW RF. 2013. No. 38, article 4831). Therefore, the order of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation No. 42n dated March 19, 2015 "On approval of the form of financial and economic justification of decisions proposed for adoption by the draft Act" and its subsequent order No. 65n dated May 10, 2023, which replaced it, became of particular importance.

This document, according to the proposed form, should contain in tabular form in monetary terms information on the economic effect of the implementation of decisions, including information on expenditures of the budgets of the budgetary system of the Russian Federation in connection with the implementation of the act, termination (cancellation) of other acts with the establishment of the amount of financial support and financial support for expenditures from other sources, an assessment of the impact (including indirect) decisions, information on other effects arising from the implementation of decisions proposed for adoption by the draft act, including information on expenses of legal entities and individuals for the execution of decisions, information on an increase (decrease) in income of individuals and legal entities during the implementation of decisions.

In order to provide methodological assistance to draft law developers, the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation has posted on its website quite detailed "Methodological recommendations for filling out the form of financial and economic justification of decisions proposed for adoption by the draft act" (URL: https://minfin.gov.ru/ru/document/?id_4=305071 (date of application: 02/14/2024)).

Detailed regulatory regulation of cost estimation in legal regulation is contained only in relation to costs in relation to the assessment of regulatory impact and the assessment of actual impact.

There are many factors that have significantly influenced the introduction of the institute for regulatory impact assessment in Russia. Among these reasons are changes in the legal policy of the state, the implementation of an anti–corruption policy, scientifically and methodologically sound forecasting aimed at improving the quality of regulatory material, as well as "the policy of careful spending of financial resources from both federal and regional budgets, which was noticeably manifested during periods of financial crises and sanctions against Russia's foreign policy" ^{[8, p. 6]}. No less important in these problems is the desire of the legislator to take into account the opinion of business associations, entrepreneurs and professional experts ^{[9, p. 140]}.

Regulatory regulation of regulatory impact assessment, as well as assessment of actual impact, is provided for in paragraph 60 (1) of the Regulations of the Government of the Russian Federation, Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 1318 dated December 17, 2012 "On the Procedure for Federal Executive Authorities to Assess the Regulatory Impact of Draft Regulatory Legal Acts and Draft Decisions of the Eurasian Economic Commission, as well as on Amendments to some Acts of the Government of the Russian Federation" (RF Law No. 52, Article 7491, 2012), Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 83 dated January 30, 2015 "On Assessing the Actual Impact of Regulatory Legal Acts, as well as on Amending Certain Acts of the Government of the Russian Federation" (RF Law. 2015. No. 6, Article 965), by Order of the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation No. 676 dated September 28, 2023 "On approval of the Methodology for Assessing the Regulatory Impact of Draft Regulatory Legal Acts, the form of a summary report on the assessment of the regulatory impact of draft regulatory legal acts, the composition and content of information in the summary report on the assessment of the regulatory impact for draft regulatory legal acts with a medium and low degree of regulatory impact", regulating the updated procedure and methodology for assessing regulatory impact, as well as Order No. 669 of the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation dated September 22, 2015 "On Approval of the Methodology for assessing standard costs of business entities and other Economic activities arising in connection with the fulfillment of regulatory requirements".

The most interesting of these documents is the latest order of the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation. The prepared recommendations are aimed at helping entities assessing costs both in the study of regulatory impact at the time of consideration of the draft regulatory act, and in the study of the actual impact of the implementation of a previously issued act.

Summing up the results of the analysis of the regulatory legal regulation of the calculation of costs for the legal regulation of public relations, we highlight the following points.

1. The legislation does not regulate the assessment of costs, which is directly related to the law–making procedure, and also does not establish requirements for the quality of the functions performed by the implementing entities in terms of the preparation of a normative legal act.

Regulatory legal regulation affecting the issues of cost calculation has received significant development in the last decade. A number of amendments have been made to by–laws - resolutions of the Government of the Russian Federation, orders of executive authorities affecting the preparation of financial and economic justification, as well as new norms in the field of regulatory and actual impact assessment, according to which methodological recommendations on cost assessment are given.

2. The assessment of costs within the framework of regulatory and actual impact is currently carried out only in relation to subjects of entrepreneurial and other economic activities and only costs arising in connection with the fulfillment of regulatory requirements.

3. In practice, the provision of financial and economic justification takes place even in cases where the draft law does not provide for changes in the budgets of the budgetary system.

4. The analysis of the legislation revealed many facts of duplication of provisions regarding the understanding and requirements for accompanying documents, including financial and economic justification, which does not correspond to paragraph 81 of the Methodological Guidelines on the legal and Technical design of regulatory legal acts of federal executive authorities approved by Order of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation dated August 31, 2023 No. 222, namely: "The act must not contain unjustified and unnecessary duplication of the provisions of acts of the legislation of the Russian Federation and acts of bodies, including the provisions of this act" (URL:  http://pravo.gov.ru, 01.09.2023).

5. In general, the system of regulatory legal regulation concerning the issues of assessing the impact on budget expenditures and revenues is not optimal at the moment. Some resolutions of the Government of the Russian Federation contain information that mutually influence and complement each other, which is at least not convenient when it is necessary to prepare a draft regulatory legal act. At the same time, there are no complete and exhaustive formulations regarding the preparation of a financial and economic justification in the normative legal acts concerning the work of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation. We believe that all the rules for preparing draft laws at the federal level should be established by a resolution of the State Duma, and in relation to draft subordinate regulatory legal acts, they are set out in Resolution No. 1009 of the Government of the Russian Federation dated August 13, 1997.