REUTERS
The Ministry of Finance does not exclude that it will offer the Ukrainian Parliament to amend the State budget for 2016 if the parameters of the already accepted document will not be agreed with the basic parameters of the program of cooperation with the country’s key creditor, the International Monetary Fund, Minister Natalie Jaresko said at a Wednesday presser.
The most argued provisions related to excise tax on alcohol and tobacco, as well as the special regime of taxation for farmers.
"I think that in respect of special regimes [of taxation of farmers, it will be very difficult to convince the Fund. But we will do what we did last year - change the budget," said the Minister.
The bill changes approaches to the taxation of farmers in part of VAT payments. The payment of this tax will be split in the following way: producers of grain and industrial crops shall transfer 15% of the tax to special accounts (for further use when they need) and 85% shall be funneled to the national budget. Cattle, meat and dairy producers shall send 80% to the special accounts and 20% to the budget. The model for other producers will be 50% by 50%. The previously suggested model was the same for all agrarian producers: 75% was proposed to be paid to the budget and 25% to the special accounts.
Read alsoRada Speaker: Adopted budget helps avoid destabilizationThe bill proposes a 100% increase in excise tax on beer and wine except for natural grape wine. Excise tax on ethyl alcohol and alcoholic beverages is planned to grow by 50% and low-alcohol beverages by 300%. The lawmakers also decided to let the Cabinet of Ministers fix minimum prices of tobacco products.
The bill suggested that two simultaneous registers of taxpayers shall be kept as of February 1, 2016, they will be similar in administration, but one of the two will contain information about the enterprises that will be refunded VAT automatically.
Read alsoIMF to decide on further bailout of Ukraine in late JanuaryThe bill virtually kept the simplified taxation system unchanged, except for the ceiling level of revenue for the third group of taxpayers. Their revenue limit was lowered to UAH 5 million (about $217,770 at the current forex rate) from UAH 20 million (about $871,000).