Salary of the President of Russia: official data and estimates

What is the salary of the President of Russia? Simple, it would seem, a question. By the way, according to the weekly "Business Life", the salary of the President of Russia at the beginning of this year was 128.3 thousand rubles a month. Or, if you count in the dollar equivalent, $ 4,300. But this is without additional payments, contributions, taxes, etc.

At the same time, the Internet portal "My salary" claims that the salary of the President of Russia reaches almost $ 179,233 per year. On average, this is $ 14,936 per month. Or - in the Russian equivalent - about 450,000 rubles. But this is 3 times more! It turns out an obvious disconnect, which, I think, needs to be clarified.

First, the indicative figure of $ 179,233 per year is the amount of income that Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to the official declaration, received in 2012. Approximately the same amount of income is "planned" for 2013. Although, in principle, everything can change. It is known that Putin earned 3.662 million rubles in 2010, whereas in 2010 - 5.042 million. As it will be in 2013, it is impossible to predict exactly yet.

Secondly, if we speak from a formal legal point of view, Vladimir Putin does not have his salary as such. There is a so-called monetary content, the size of which is determined every year by the State Duma of the Russian Federation and prescribed in a separate line in the federal budget. If we assume that such a monetary content is the official salary of the president of Russia, then 1064019 rubles a year go out. Or somewhere $ 35,400 for 12 months. At the same time, the law on the state budget sets a separate line for "the functioning of the president of the Russian Federation", which is estimated at 8,019,207 rubles. As a result, it turns out that the head of state in 2013 will spend more than 9 million rubles.

Third, it is not entirely clear from the financial or the logical point of view what the "monetary content" of the President differs from his "functioning". The fact is that there is no clear definition of both the first and second term, as there is no concept of "the salary of the President of Russia." The question is not whether the contributions to the Pension Fund are paid or not. The problem is in another - who calculates the salary-content and determines its size? For example, the size of the salary of the US President is determined by a separate law, which is constitutional in nature and therefore can not be changed either by the owner of the White House or by Congress. However, personally the President can make individual decisions about how to spend the funds paid from the federal budget. But this is, as they say, a personal matter, a political position.

Or another example - the size of the monetary allowance of the President of France is also determined by a separate legislative act, but the level of the salary itself can be changed - during the crisis, Mr. Hollande significantly reduced his appetites.

However, judging by the official statements of the presidential administration, the salary of the president of Russia does not exceed 120 thousand dollars. USA per year. In any case, this is due to the fuzzy statements of the press secretary of the head of state Dmitry Peskov. Although this version seems most plausible.