Economic and Legal Space of Shadow Economy

The article presents a systematization of the existing regulatory and methodological framework clarifying the concept of "shadow economy" from the perspective of international and criminal law regulation. The provisions of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation are analyzed article by article and the parameterization of the shadow economy through the indicator of illegal economic benefits is proposed. The purpose of considering the shadow economy from the perspective of its regulatory and legal regulation is to supplement the accumulated scientific potential and present a system of parameters for assessing the facts of the manifestation of shadow phenomena for subsequent monitoring of their individual indicators. As a result, the following conclusion is formulated. In the international regulation of the concept of «shadow economy», the most important activity is related to money laundering, in other words, with the transformation of various facts of criminal economic and not only activities into legal ones. The criminal law regulation of the concept of «shadow economy» is characterized by various forms and types of illegal economic benefits, as well as ways to extract it when committing illegal actions. The list of types of illegal economic benefits is defined as follows: 1) in relation to the confiscated form of illegal economic benefit: in the form of cash, valuables and other property; in the form of income from this property; 2) in relation to a non-confiscated form of illegal economic benefit: in the form of income, which is characterized by a cash flow coming in cash and/or non-cash forms on illegal grounds; in the form of an income equivalent value of tangible assets. In this context, the shadow economy is considered as a system of managerial and economic relations arising in the process of formation and transformation of shadow cash flows. In turn, the subsystem of managerial relations includes a "criminal" component, according to which they fall under criminally punishable crimes, with the exception of the economic sphere. In this case, the parameter for assessing the «criminal» component of the shadow economy is the value of the total cash flow, which is formed as a result of the implementation of the considered non-economic crimes, determined only by the «cash method». The subsystem of economic relations includes a «falsified» component, according to which they fall under criminally punishable crimes in the field of economics, regardless of the amount of generated cash flow. In this case, the parameter for evaluating the «falsified» component of the shadow economy is the value of the total cash flow, which is formed as a result of the implementation of the economic crimes in question, determined by both the "cash method" and the «accrual method».