Inter-budget Relations in Kazakhstan: State and Main Trends

Balance of the state budget is one of the necessary conditions for the effective functioning of the budget system of the country. This balance is largely determined by inter-governmental fiscal relations and the resulting redistribution of financial resources between the central, regional and local levels of the budget system. Inter-budget relations in Kazakhstan over the past two decades have undergonesignificant changes, which further increased the relevance of research on this topic. Such aspects of inter-budget relations as the increase in the volume and specific weight of transfers from the republican budget to the budgets of lower state bodies, the growth of the number of subsidized regions, the reduction of revenues to the republican level from the regional level, caused special attention to this problem in the budget process of Kazakhstan. The article examines the state and development of inter-budget relations in Kazakhstan in terms of these aspects in order to identify the main trends of their transformation and assess their impact on the budget process. The article analyses the main parameters of inter-budget relations in Kazakhstan, reveals trends in the role of subsidies and exemptions from local budgets, and considers the dynamicsof the number of subsidized regions and donor regions of the republican budget. It is noted that there is no noticeable improvement in the situation at the level of regional budgets, despite the increase in their revenue base due to the transfer of a number of tax revenues to the local level in 2020. Based on the analysis, the author concludes that the situation in the sphere of inter-budget relations in Kazakhstan is deteriorating, which is manifested in a constant decrease in the number of donor regions and an increase in the number of regions receiving subsidies, an increase in the share of subsidies in the revenues of local budgets, and a decrease in the share of exemptions from local budgets in the state budget revenues. It is also noted that the imbalance of inter-budget relations leads to the complication of the budget process at the republican level, which requires the adoption of measures to further increase the financial independence of the regions.