Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law according to which all information on income, expenses, and property of Russian deputies and senators will be published online with no personal data attached. The corresponding document was posted on the official Russian legislature website.
The changes are added to the law “On the status of a Russian Federation senator and status of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation deputy”.
Starting from 1 March 2023, only generalised information about deputies and senators having provided the needed data and fulfilling the anti-corruption law will be published on the internet.
“All the existing mechanisms of submitting tax returns, the scope of the [provided] information, reviews, etc. — all of these will be unchanged for deputies and senators. There’s no question of decreasing control,” one of the bill’s authors, Chairman of the State Building and Legislation Committee Pavel Krasheninnikov previously said.
Furthermore, according to Chairman of Russia’s State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin, the decision on how to publish a tax return — anonymously or publicly — will be up to each deputy.
The same law contains an amendment according to which municipal and regional deputies who are exercising authority on a non-permanent basis do not have to submit tax returns.
Previously, information about deputies and senators’ income was posted annually before 1 April.
