Tax potential of municipalities as the basis of regional budgets

In the Russian Federation (hereinafter referred to as RF, Russia), which is a federal state with a three-level budget system, it is assumed that there is tax potential at all levels: federal, regional, and local. With the help of taxes, the financial basis of local governments is formed and the socio-economic development of municipalities is ensured. In developed countries, municipal budgets are formed mainly from the taxes assigned to them. In Russia, they continue to remain the most problematic link in the country’s budget system. The purpose of the article is to study the influence of the taxes assigned to local budgets on the formation of the tax potential of the municipalities. Objectives are the following: analysis and assessment of revenues of the Russian local budgets in dynamics, justification of directions for increasing the tax potential. The methodological basis of the research is founded on a systematic approach, within which the following methods have been used: analysis and synthesis, generalisation, grouping, tabular method, etc. The research has found that over the past years, with the introduction of the Tax Code of the RF, problems of insufficient tax and non-tax revenues remain for most municipalities, low level of the tax potential and predominance of interbudgetary transfers in their budgets are current. Due to the increasing centralisation of the tax revenues, the degree of dependence of the municipalities on the federal centre is high. Without actually enhancing the tax potential of the municipalities, the development of the regional economy is impossible. The re -search results can be used in practice when developing economic policy for municipal development.