Berezina E.V. On the Question about the Legal Nature of Insurance Contributions

Abstract: The subject of the present research is the legal nature of the payments arriving into the state off-budget social funds at different stages of development of social insurance. Considering the fact that there is the new wave of the dicussion about the transfer of administration of insurance contributions from the off-budget funds into the tax service, the analysis of the legal nature of insurance contributions is growing especially important. In this article Berezina examines the legal transformation that has happened in the legal regulation of insurance contributions and analyzes the evolution of the legal positions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, opinions of scientists and experts on the matter, and proposals of the Russian Federation goverment concerning necessary changes in the current legislation. In her research Berezina has used the combination of several research methods, in particular, legalistic, comparative law, systemic (logical) methods, analysis of the aforesaid phenomena from the point of view of its historical development, etc. The main conclusions of the research are the following: Unlike taxes, insurance contributions for compulsory pension insurance comply with the compensatory and collectibility criteria because when received by the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation, these contributions are personified in terms of each insured party and thus develops its subjective right to a pension. The scientific novelty of the research is caused by the fact that the author offers criteria for differentiating between taxes and insurance charges from the point of view of the nature of legal relations in the sphere of compulsory pension insurance. 

Keywords: