Tax authorities will check the income and expenses of all Ukrainians

[himuhumaira]

The authorities have seriously taken up the income of Ukrainians: the agenda of the Verkhovna Rada includes the bill of people’s deputies Yuriy Lutsenko and Alexander Kirsh “On the zero declaration”, obliging All adult citizens will soon present to the State Fiscal Service not only their income for the year, but also their expenses. And if it phone number list turns out that a person has spent more than he earned, he will have to not only argue to the tax authorities “where the firewood came from”, but also pay taxes on it. President Petro Poroshenko has already stated that he hopes for the bill to be considered in the near future, and for it to be supported by the deputy corps. Segodnya found out how the innovation will change the lives of the people .

WHAT'S WHAT . According to the draft law, after its approval, every Ukrainian will be required to personally (!) fill out, bring or send by mail to the State Fiscal Service a so-called zero declaration: it must indicate what he owns (business, real estate, land, transport, jewelry, bank deposits, cash, etc.). In this case, the tax authorities will not ask how you managed to accumulate wealth - this data will be accepted simply as a kind of “reference point”. But next year, everyone will have to show the tax authorities not only their income (profit from business, salary, interest on deposits, income from the sale of property, gifts, including cash, etc.), and the amount of taxes paid on them, but most importantly, expenses. If it turns out that taxes have been underpaid, the tax authorities will charge additional taxes. Well, if expenses exceed income, you will have to give a reasoned explanation - why, say, 100 thousand UAH per year was earned, but 200 thousand was spent? If it is not possible to prove that taxes on this additional income have already been paid, the person will be required to pay a tax of 21% of the excess amount, plus 22% - unified social tax. Of course, this can only be revealed in cases where the newly acquired property is subject to registration (real estate, transport, land). "All citizens of Ukraine, regardless of income, will have to fill out a declaration on all property that a person owns and all income that he has," Lutsenko explained. "If these funds are in a bank account, they must be shown. Thus, no one will be able to say that he "borrowed money from his mother-in-law." Lutsenko is confident that the implementation of the law will attract shadow money to the economy, fill the state budget with additional income and improve the investment climate.

EXPERTS . According to the President of the Ukrainian Analytical Center, Oleksandr Okhrimenko, declaring income and expenses is a global practice and, having signed the Association with the EU, we are obliged to adopt such a law. “But its implementation will take several years. We will face difficulties, especially in the provinces, where there are not enough qualified personnel and the level of financial literacy of the population is low. Therefore, a transition period of 2-3 years is needed,” Okhrimenko believes and warns: people who do not have official income will suffer from the innovation. They will be charged a tax at least on income in the amount of the subsistence minimum (from 1378 UAH - this is about 300 UAH), and will also be forced to pay the unified social contribution.

Economist Viktor Lisitsky, however, doubts that serious businesses will comply with this law and pay taxes honestly: “The level of corruption in our country, unfortunately, is such that the tax authorities will only be able to shake down small “shopkeepers” and ordinary citizens – finding out where their “extra” money comes from.”

DEPUTIES . However, it seems that the “Lutsenko law” is unlikely to be adopted without amendments. As Nina Yuzhanina, head of the relevant committee of the Verkhovna Rada, explained to us, this document is too declarative, does not provide for clear deadlines for its implementation, as well as strict liability for failure to submit or concealment of income from the State Fiscal Service. “The law is very important and must be clearly written. It is easier to rewrite the proposed draft than to revise it, so now the committee, in cooperation with the Ministry of Finance, is preparing a new version of the bill. It is imperative to allow tax authorities to use indirect methods of determining income. As for the deadlines, the deputies will probably consider it in the second half of the year - after discussion with the public. And the law will be implemented in several stages: we will start with civil servants, then business, and only last of all - citizens. At the same time, non-working pensioners will be excluded from it.”

The yachts haven't been paid for yet

But taxation of luxury items will be limited to real estate for now. As a reminder, since 2016, these are apartments (over 60 sq. m), houses (over 120 sq. m) and expensive cars (over 1 million UAH and no older than 5 years). Earlier, the Cabinet of Ministers received a proposal to recognize motorcycles, motorboats and yachts worth more than 50 thousand euros, as well as airplanes and helicopters worth more than 200 thousand euros, as luxury items. But the Cabinet of Ministers did not support this proposal: as the government press service explained to us, the main problem is that it is impossible to determine the tax base (the cost of these luxury items), since the tax service does not have reliable data on how much the airplane or yacht was purchased for, and the owner can declare any cost.

According to transport market expert Konstantin Kinburn, in fact, it is possible to find out the cost of already used boats, private jets, etc. in two ways: either in fact, by assessing their technical condition (primarily this concerns air transport), or by the catalog price taking into account depreciation (this data is available at the Ministry of Infrastructure, where sea and river vessels are registered). “But, most likely, the costs of administering this tax will exceed the revenues. For example, based on the results of monitoring, it will turn out that 90% of watercraft do not reach 50 thousand euros, and we have no more than a hundred private jets and helicopters in all of Ukraine. Therefore, the revenues from them to the treasury will not exceed 2-3 million UAH per year,” analyzes Kinburn. “This issue has more of a political background - they say, let's force the rich to pay for the use of something that is inaccessible to ordinary people. Therefore, the topic of taxation of such transport has been raised more than once, but has not led to anything.”