Small Forms of Trade as a Strategic Direction of Legal Regulation: From the Origin to the COVID-19 Pandemic and the New Economic Reality (Peddling Trade Case Study)

The paper examines the problems of legal policy formation in the field of regulation of non-stationary and non-chain formats of trade (small trade forms) in Russia on the example of the draft Strategy for the Trade Development until 2025 and Peddling Trade. The paper describes specifics of the implementation of the main goals and objectives of the Strategy related to ensuring a variety of forms of trade and «deregulation» in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The author describes the historical experience of the Russian legal regulation of peddling trade and analyzes the use of the traditional permissive regulatory model. Modern legislative attempts to «deregulate» peddling trade in Russia are critically evaluated from the point of view of legal technique and the real volume of regulatory burden for salesmen. Federal «deregulation» does not eliminate, but only strengthens administrative barriers at the local level of regulation, which, as shown in the paper, is often characterized by inadequate and excessive rulemaking contradicting federal legislation and the legal standing of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation. In this regard, the availability of small forms for private trade initiatives in practice is limited not only by the general requirement to register a citizen’s entrepreneurial activity, which is not mitigated by modern norms on professional income tax, but also by arbitrary municipal regulation. At the same time, the traditional permissive model for peddling trade, uniformly applied throughout the state, but with freedoms for certain types of goods, seems more appropriate and favorable for merchants than the apparent «deregulation», which is confirmed by foreign experience. Thus, the draft Strategy for trade development until 2025 is clearly outdated and needs a serious update that would correspond to the new economic reality formed by the COVID-19 pandemic and economic sanctions and take into account the nature and effectiveness of the legislative changes that have already taken place.

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