Actual issues of legal regulation of formation of budgets of the united territorial communities in Ukraine
Authors: Nataliia Vorotina 
Published: June 2020

Introduction. More than five years in Ukraine is the reform of decentralization of power, an important component of which is financial decentralization. The purpose of this reform is to improve the financial independence of local budgets and strengthening the role of local government. It is in the process of introducing the reform in 2015 in Ukraine was adopted the Law of Ukraine "On Voluntary Association of Territorial Communities", according to which envisages establishing of united territorial communities and the formation of their budgets.

As a result of financial decentralization is transferring of significant amount of financial resources to the local level, allowing better fund the needs of the residents of the territorial community. Given this, it is relevant and important, is to research the peculiarities of legal regulation of the formation of the combined budgets of territorial communities in Ukraine and creating of favorable conditions for their financial solvency.

The aim of the article. The purpose of this article is to elucidate the role and importance of budgets of the united territorial communities in the budgetary system of Ukraine, revealing features of their legal regulation in the context of financial decentralization, evaluation of methods of achieving their financial viability, development of proposals on improvement of legislation in this area.

Results. Amendments to the Budget Code of Ukraine, according to which budgets of the united territorial communities were included to the budgetary system of Ukraine, were adopted in 2015. The basis for mentioned above amendments to the Budget Code of Ukraine was adoption on the eve of the Law of Ukraine "On Voluntary Association of Territorial Communities".

The notion of "the united budgets of territorial communities" has been determined in the Budget Code of Ukraine since 2017 as the combined budgets of territorial communities established in accordance with the law and a long-term plan of formation of territories of communities, as well as the budgets of the consolidated territorial communities recognized by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine in the manner prescribed by law.

Definition of "capable territorial communities" as territorial communities of villages (settlements, cities) that, through voluntary association, are able to provide, on their own or through the relevant local authorities, an appropriate level of service provision, especially in the fields of education, culture, health, of social protection, housing and communal services, taking into account the human resources, financial support and infrastructure development of the respective administrative-territorial unit, is contained in the Methodology of formation of capable territorial communities.

When forming a promising unified territorial community is an important preliminary calculation of its financial viability, which allows you to evaluate the benefits and risks of such associations, to determine the need for additional funds and streamline costs. Methodological recommendations for the calculation of the financial solvency of united territorial community were prepared for the proper assessment of the said ability. It gives the possibility to model the prospective budget of the community, determines the necessity of analysis of reserves to balance revenues and expenditures, and encourages association in financial viable community.

Conclusions. As a result of financial decentralization is appearance in the structure of the budget system of Ukraine a new important element – the budgets of united territorial communities. Such the structural changes of budget system are in line with the trends in the developed democratic states of the world, and therefore should be considered as important, progressive and aimed at achieving financial solvency of local self-government.

The budgets of the united territorial communities have number of special characteristics of the formation, must be financially solvent, that today is one of the important problems that need to be resolved.

One of the main features of formation of budgets of the united territorial communities is that they have direct interbudget relations with the State Budget of Ukraine. To the budgets of the united territorial community (hereinafter mentioned as UTC), in addition to their main income, is credited 60 percent of the tax to incomes of physical persons. The budgets of the UTC, in addition to the cost of exercising self-governing powers, also finance the expenditure delegated by the state.

To improve the efficiency to resolve budget issues of united territorial communities it is extremely important to urgently develop of Methodical recommendations on planning and execution of the budget, control the accounting and financial management, and so on.

The issues of ensuring the financial viability of UTC budgets are extremely important and need further refinement of the mechanisms to achieve this.