Putin, Medvedev file income declarations

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev met the deadline to file income declarations for 2012 that expires on Monday, April 1. Under the law, the high-ranking state officials are to file income declarations before April 1 every year. “The Russian president and all high-ranking officials of his administration have prepared and filed their income declarations under the law,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Itar-Tass on Sunday. “This issue is being kept under special control, and the income declarations will be made public within the period of time set in the law,” Peskov pledged. In the previous year the income declarations were made public on April 12. “The prime minister and the whole Cabinet filed their income declarations for 2012,” Medvedev’s spokesperson Natalia Timakova told Itar-Tass. Peskov noted that as the country’s leadership reports for 2012, the declarations contain only their incomes so far. The information about their expenses will be produced from 2014 under the law enacted in the previous year and will include large expenses made in 2013. On May 18, 2009, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the decree on the procedure of posting the information about the incomes, property and proprietary liabilities by people, who occupy the state posts in the Russian Federation, federal state officials and members of their families at the official websites of the federal state agencies and the state agencies in the constituents of the Russian Federation and presenting this information to the Russian national media outlets for publishing. Since then the information about the property and the incomes of members of the families of the president, prime minister, ministers, officials of the Kremlin administration, presidential representatives in the federal districts is filed in the taxation services and is posted on the official websites. In the previous year the law was enacted to declare not only the incomes, but also large expenses of the state officials that should assist in the struggle against corruption. Under the income declaration in 2011 Medvedev earned 3,371,353.27 roubles as the Russian president. Almost all officials of his administration received large incomes. A year ago Medvedev owned a land plot on the area of 4,700 square metres in Russia under the rent contract and a flat in Russia on the area of 367.8 square metres together with his wife Svetlana. He also has 15 accounts in the banks to the tune of 5,178,081.62 roubles. Medvedev also included in his income declaration in the previous year a white car Pobeda produced in 1948 and a car Volga GAZ-21 produced in 1962. In 2011 the income of Putin, who worked as the prime minister then, have made 3.6 million roubles. In the previous year Putin declared that he owns a flat on the area of 77 square meters in St. Petersburg, a land plot on the area of 1,500 square meters in the Moscow Region, three domestically produced cars (two cars GAZ and a Lada car) and a trailer.