The Values of Large (Particularly Large) Amounts of Income, Damage, Indebtedness for Economic Crimes

Abstract

When formulating the objective side of economic crimes, the lawmakers often use such a result of deviant economic behavior as material damage, which could be large or particularly large; they also characterize the offence through the scale of actions or the amount of criminally acquired income (avoidance of losses) — its large (particularly large) amount. In general, this is a rational approach since the crimes are committed in the economic sphere, so their consequences and other features could and should be expressed through economic indicators. The problem for crimes under Chapter 22 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation consists in the fact that the number of legally defined variations in the understanding of large and particularly large amounts is constantly increasing and the difference between their minimum and the maximum levels is steadily growing. The article contains a detailed analysis of the contemporary condition of the problem of criteria for defining a large (particularly large) amount of income, damage, etc. for economic crimes. The author notes that there are 18 different variants for understanding a large amount of damage, income, or debt, and in 14 cases this large amount acts as the only indication of crime, i.e. the feature that makes it possible to criminalize the action. The same analysis is applied to the concept of a particularly large amount; Chapter 22 of the CC of the RF contains 12 variants of it. Such a wide range of values results in a number of negative consequences: the borders of criminalization for similar actions are defined differently, the limits of punishments included for them in the sanctions are established differently, different conditions for applying the norms of exemption from criminal liability for economic crimes are formed. The author analyses various ideas on changing approaches to defining the concepts of large (particularly large) amounts of income, damage, debt, and shows how these drawbacks in criminal legislation could be eliminated.