Comprehensive Method of Assessing Legislative Compliance with the Principle of Equity as Exemplified by Tax Relations

Abstract

This research is devoted to the issue of assessing the effective legislation from the perspective of the legal principle of equity. The author proposes to define the latter as the only super-principle of its kind based on the concept of public welfare. Based on this approach, a comprehensive method of assessing legislation is developed, involving a profound analysis of the content of legislative regulations, as well as their actual implementation in practice from the perspective of compliance with legal principles and legal axioms. The conclusion is made that regulations will not comply with the principle of equity criterion if their content or the result of their practical implementation enables departure from other legal principles, and such departure is neither necessary nor justified and causes obvious legal imbalance misaligned with the public welfare concept or directly contradicting legal axioms. The outlined principle was applied to analyze the effective tax legislation of the Russian Federation, which led the author to the conclusion that the taxation system existing in Russia nowadays is incapable of satisfying a series of requirements dictated by the fundamental legal principles of taxation (proportionality, certainty, convenience, transparency, presumption of good faith and practicality), lacking a clear and accurate justification of departing from such requirements and, consequently, the need for radical reformation of the tax legislation of the Russian Federation to bring the latter in compliance with the legal principle of equity.