We spent a whole month together with the Centre for Nonprofit Law seeking, analyzing and studying laws on youth policy in several European countries and the US. I’m sure that comparing and studying experiences is very valuable. It doesn’t meant we’re just going to copy somebody else’s laws, but we might find some ideas and thoughts that could take root in our country, that could be adapted to our situation and produce results in the area I’m working on the moment - youth policy.
If you look, for example, at tax legislation in most European Union countries, they grant income tax exemptions or concessions to organizations serving young people. I think this is very good principle. In our country, the reality of the way the laws are applied is that the government provides hardly any benefits or privileges to youth organizations. The registration and control procedures and reporting by youth organizations are no different than for other nonprofit organizations. Taxation of youth organizations is no different from the tax treatment of other nonprofit organizations.
I’m going to work to get this principle into law. And you know what’s interesting? – in the US and most European countries, unlike the Russian Federation, there’s no specific legislation on youth issues and youth policies. I’m going to try to continue, here on my website, pointing out interesting things and examples from other countries’ legislation.