The authorities decided to tighten control over the incomes of officials, heads of budgetary institutions and state corporations: for the first time, directors of schools, heads of kindergartens and chief doctors of hospitals and clinics will be required to declare personal expenses. They will be required to report on loans taken and payments on them, and heads of state institutions will be required to declare expenses. This is reported by RBC and Interfax with reference to the anti-corruption amendments of the Ministry of Labor to Russian legislation.

The head of the Ministry of Labor Anton Kotyakov submitted the relevant bill for consideration by the government commission on legislative activities, the document was supported. Now the Labor Code and the law on the fight against corruption oblige them to declare information about their income, the bill proposes to supplement these obligations with the requirement to declare expenses as well. The Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, Rosfinmonitoring and other departments have already given their approval. The regulation will apply only to transactions concluded from January 1, 2023, the bill itself may come into force from January 1, 2024.

The Ministry of Labor also wants school directors and chief doctors to report on the expenses of spouses and minor children. Currently, they are required to report only income and property, as well as liabilities of a property nature. The innovation will potentially affect up to 206.6 thousand Russians.

Currently, large purchases are subject to mandatory declaration only if the amount of expenses for one transaction or the amount of expenses for all transactions for the reporting period (year) exceeds the total income of the official and his wife (spouse) for the last three years.

The Ministry of Labor proposes to supplement the list of transactions subject to declaration. It will be necessary to report on the taking and repayment of loans, as well as on all transactions that provide for payment by installments (acquisition of property and refinancing of loans). It will be necessary to report loans not only to the heads of state institutions, but in general to all officials who are subject to regulation, from federal ministers to heads of state corporations.

Last year, Transparency International reported that the median salary of a Russian official who is required to report income was 82,000 rubles a month. This amount is three times higher than the median income of a Russian citizen for the same period, calculated by Rosstat (27 thousand rubles a month). The highest median incomes were among officials in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (241 thousand rubles a month), Moscow (216 thousand) and Yakutia (185 thousand). Officials earn the least in the Kirov region (52,000 rubles), Kalmykia (48,000), and North Ossetia (45,000).