On the Legal Nature of the «Revenue Prescription»

An order to collect income from violations of antimonopoly legislation to the federal budget, or a «revenue order» remains one of the most controversial tools for implementing state antimonopoly policy, both from the point of view of its current legal regime and from the point of view of its legal nature. The intensification of the use of this tool in the law enforcement practice of antimonopoly authorities, in the context of the continuing pluralism of points of view in science and practice regarding the legal nature of the «revenue prescription», determines the need for a comprehensive study of the «revenue prescription» as a legal phenomenon. The article shows the dynamics of the legal regulation of the «income prescription» in chronological terms; systematizes the options, positions and arguments expressed in the scientific literature and court decisions regarding the legal nature of the «income prescription»; analyzes current legislation and law enforcement practice from the standpoint of domestic legal theory, the doctrine of civil and administrative law in order to unambiguously define the legal nature «income regulations» Special attention is paid in the article to the comparison of the characteristic features of the «income prescription» with the criteria developed in the science of law, which make it possible to distinguish and correlate «measures of state coercion», «measures of civil liability», «measures of administrative and restorative nature», «measures of administrative responsibility». Using the tools and positions of legal theory, the doctrine of civil and administrative law, as well as the exclusion method, the legal nature of the «income prescription» is determined (it is an administrative penalty, a measure of administrative and legal responsibility in the form of confiscation of the offender’s property). The article contains the results of an assessment of the compliance of the legal regime of the «income prescription» with the constitutional principles of establishing legal responsibility and industry legal regulation. The article also presents the results of an assessment of the compliance of the legal regime of the “income prescription” with the constitutional principles of establishing legal responsibility and industry legal regulation. Based on the results of this assessment, the authors conclude that the current legal regime of “income prescription” is inconsistent with constitutional provisions, including its inconsistency with the constitutionally entrenched principles of fairness and proportionality of legal responsibility, the principle of equality of everyone in front of the law, as well as the norms of the Constitution, that exclude the deprivation of property without a court decision.

revenue regulation, state coercion, antimonopoly authority, administrative responsibility, civil liability, constitutional provisions