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Putin's budget message: no drastic changes in tax policy

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MOSCOW, May 30 (RIA Novosti) - President Vladimir Putin's budget address contains no "revolutionary changes" in tax policy but rather aims to streamline and balance the budget system, a Kremlin aide said Tuesday.

The speech, posted on the Kremlin Web site Tuesday, instructs the government to balance the country's budget system in the long term, especially with regard to the state's obligations in pension provisions and other types of state social insurance.

Arkady Dvorkovich, head of the presidential expert department, said there would be no mass closures of schools in Russia or a surge in unemployment.

"There are no such fears: [Regional] governors are behaving reasonably," he said, adding that nothing would happen in Russia that could provoke mass protests like those seen recently in Spain, Germany or France.

"In Russia, everything happens slowly and gradually, especially in the social sphere" he said.

The budget speech also says the government should continue its policy of accumulating windfall budget revenues in the Stabilization Fund, set up in 2004 to accumulate windfall profits from oil prices above a cut-off point of $27 per barrel, and hold back inflation by neutralizing an influx of petrodollars.

"Stabilization Fund money accrued above the required minimum should be spent exclusively on replacing external sources of budget financing and/or pre-term repayment of sovereign debt," the speech says.

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