MOSCOW, January 21 (RAPSI) - The Moscow City Duma (city parliament) has proposed regulating pet ownership, which could include the registration of pets, a pet tax and public control of animal shelter expenses, RIA Novosti reports on Wednesday.

Zoya Zotova, Chair of the City Duma Commission on Environmental Policy, explained that during Soviet times there was a fee for pet owners and pets had to be registered. In 1994, with the adoption of the Civil Code, pets were qualified as property and therefore they could not be registered without official papers. Zotova believes the registration of dogs, for example, would increase the responsibility of their owners and decrease the number of stray dogs.

Zotova said that it is also necessary to introduce a pet tax but it is only possible at the federal level.

The parliament members believe that the registration of dogs would also relieve some burden from the budget as the 13 city animal shelters require about 800 million rubles a year.

Member of the Moscow City Duma Vladimir Platonov noted that another issue is the funding for the shelters which is currently non-transparent. He believes that this would require public control.

In late December, the St. Petersburg legislative assembly forwarded a bill to the State Duma to levy an annual tax on pet owners at 1,000 rubles (about $15) per pet and also harsher penalties for violating pet ownership requirements. The tax on neutered or spayed dogs would be cut to 100 rubles per pet, an explanatory note to the bill says. The bill would also regulate requirements for pet ownership and registration, for walking dogs and for euthanasia.

According to St. Petersburg MPs, there are at least 8.5 million dogs and 28 million cats in Russia. If the bill is adopted, it would increase budget revenues by 7.7 billion rubles (over $118 million), the explanatory note says. The authors of the bill say these funds could be invested in animal shelters and dog runs.