decent work

Introduction. The relevance of the problem of self-employment in Russia is justified by the need for its legalization, withdrawal from the shadow economy and attracting this category of the population to pay various kinds of contributions and taxes. While attempts of the authorities to legalize self-employed citizens and determine their legal status have not been successful, which indicates a lack of theoretical development of this phenomenon. The purpose of this article is to present the system of economic relations, expressed in the category of self-employment, and to make proposals for the successful functioning of this category of labor resources. Theoretical analysis. When examining the system of economic relations in the sphere of self-employment of the Russian population, the authors emphasize the specifics of self-employment in comparison with the more general category of employment, define self-employment as a process of including the population in economic activity, which is expressed in the independent organization of the production of goods or services without the use of an employed manpower in order to generate income. This allows us to show the role of these relations in the system of labor relations and property relations, the inconsistency of the self-employment interpretations available in the literature, and make suggestions on the determination of the legal status of the self-employed. Conclusions. Additional justification of the President’s proposal for granting not only tax holidays, but also exemption from taxation of the category of self-employed, which meets the criterion proposed in the article, is given.