Twenty-three State Duma deputies missed a Kremlin-imposed deadline to submit income declarations, but none face punishment.
According to the Duma's web site, 14 United Russia deputies, four Communists and five members of the Liberal Democratic Party have failed to release income declarations despite a May 14 deadline.
President Dmitry Medvedev, as part of his drive against corruption, set the deadline in a law requiring top officials and their spouses to declare their incomes and some assets.
Communist Sergei Levchenko said he had defied the deadline because Medvedev also did not “follow his obligations.”
“The authorities have promised to give apartments to all war veterans, but they didn’t. So this is my principle position,” he told The Moscow Times on Tuesday.
“I am not against the filing of income declarations. I have filed many of them," he said. "But my earnings are peanuts compared with what people in the Kremlin are earning."
Other deputies blamed technical and bureaucratic glitches for the absence of their declarations.
Yelena Kondakova, a United Russia deputy and former cosmonaut who flew with the U.S. crew in the space shuttle Atlantis in 1997, submitted her declaration in April, but it did not appear on the Duma's web site because of a "technical mistake," her aide, Viktor Klyus, said by telephone.
“All of this is not a problem for her. She has nothing to declare except her salary,” he said, adding that she refiled her declaration Tuesday.
United Russia Deputy Vitaly Shuba's declaration was missing because of a "technical problem,” an assistant said. “I can swear to you that he submitted his declaration at the end of April,” she said.
Other deputies who didn't file declarations included Iosef Kobzon, a well-known crooner and member of United Russia, and Zhores Alferov, a Nobel Prize laureate and Communist.
Kobzon said he had no intention of sharing his income. “Every year in March, I declare all my income to the tax inspectors. Call them if you are interested,” he told the Marker newspaper.
Alferov could not be reached for comment.
The deputies face no fines or reprimands under current legislation. On Monday, Deputy Prosecutor General Ernst Valeyev proposed introducing fines for officials who missed deadlines and criminal penalties for those who were unable to explain the sources of their incomes.
But Gennady Gudkov, a member of the Duma's Security Committee, said the penalties would not increase transparency. “I am afraid that the prosecutors would use them to single out specific officials because most of them have already learned how to register their assets in other people's names,” he said.
More than 300 senior Interior Ministry officials have submitted their income declarations, according to the ministry's web site. One official, St. Petersburg police chief Vladislav Piotrovsky, declared a 2009 income of $760,000, almost 10 times more than the declared income of Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev, who filed his declaration in April.