Rada passes bill to exempt religious organizations' charities from taxation

Some 281 lawmakers voted for the adoption of bill No. 5050 in first reading to amend the Tax Code of Ukraine in terms of clarifying certain provisions regarding taxation of non-profit organizations.

The required minimum is 226 votes.

Ukrainian MP Pavlo Unhuryan stated, when reporting on the bill, that the document introduces technical changes to the Tax Code with the view of facilitating the provision of charitable assistance by religious organizations.

The explanatory note to the document says the Tax Code stipulates that if organizations provide charitable aid, it is necessary to mention this type of assistance in their charter.

However, existing charters of many organizations do not provide for the statement of many types of assistance, particularly, the assistance to participants of the Anti-Terrorist Operation and their families.

Head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Taxation and Customs Policy Nina Yuzhanina reported that the re-registration of charters of charitable organizations was carried out upon approval of local authorities.

"Handling such re-registrations is very slow, a few charters per week, therefore the religious organizations will not manage to do this in due time [by January 1, 2017]," Yuzhanina said adding that it is proposed to extend the re-registration of charters until January 1, 2018.

Further, the explanatory note says that amending the Tax Code of Ukraine will eliminate the need for religious organizations to incorporate changes to their constituent documents and ensure their re-registration by the January 1, 2017 deadline.

It is also proposed to establish that non-profit enterprises, institutions and organizations cannot be excluded from the register of non-profit institutions and organizations solely on the grounds that the supervisory authorities do not have copies of constituent documents of such organizations. This may be caused not least because of postal and other communication problems which may arise in the run-up to the re-registration deadline, it is noted.

UNIAN memo. As of the beginning of 2016, some 34,611 religious organizations, which are included in the register of non-profit institutions and organizations of Ukraine, were registered as legal entities in the country, according to Ukraine's Ministry of Culture.