Legal Issues of Ensuring Targeting in the Provision of the Unified Child Benefit

This article examines one of the key challenges in the implementation of the unified monthly child benefit: ensuring that the assistance is granted only to families who genuinely meet the established need criteria. The basis for the benefit’s provision is a comprehensive need assessment, which is not always unambiguously perceived by society and often leads to attempts by certain individuals to circumvent eligibility requirements in order to receive the benefit. The subject of the study includes the provisions of Federal Law No. 81-FZ of May 19, 1995 “On State Benefits for Citizens with Children”, as well as the Rules approved by the Government of the Russian Federation that regulate the assignment and payment of monthly benefits for childbirth and child-rearing in the aspects not directly defined by the law. The goal of this article is to determine how effectively the current Rules ensure that the unified benefit is granted exclusively to families who actually satisfy the need criteria. By analyzing both the regulatory framework and the previous practices of providing social support based on need assessments, the article demonstrates that it is impossible to fully eliminate the risk of benefits being awarded to those who do not genuinely qualify. This issue stems not only from the high level of informal employment and the resulting underreporting of income, but also from deficiencies in how certain types of income are accounted for. The article also highlights common schemes used to bypass the so-called “zero-income rule,” such as fictitious divorces or registering as a self-employed individual subject to professional income tax in order to acquire or retain benefit eligibility. The author evaluates recent amendments made to the Rules in response to such practices. The article concludes that the most effective countermeasure is legislative reform that renders circumvention either futile or prohibitively difficult. However, this approach comes at a cost: increased regulatory complexity and the need for additional oversight mechanisms, which in turn require more administrative resources.

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