In an interview with “Novyny.Live” Hetmantsev noted that the Ukrainian economy has exhausted its opportunities to increase taxes. Previously, the parliamentarian voiced the same opinion, in particular, in the podcast of the EP “Chronicles of the Economy”. At the moment, Ukraine does not have the resources to increase revenues by increasing tax rates.
“Raising (rates – ed.) taxes is not about eliminating distortions, schemes, tax evasion. I will not be deceitful – not everything is good in our economy. Our GDP growth has slowed down significantly. And this is a marker that consumption is falling, switching to cheaper goods. That is, people are starting to save and poverty is growing. And this is a problem for the economy as a whole. Therefore, I do not see any opportunities to increase the rates of basic taxes,” Hetmantsev noted.
He added that he considers it immoral to talk about increasing taxes for the population against the background of the fact that many businesses continue to operate in the shadows. According to the parliamentarian, any increase in the tax rate falls on the white payer, but at the same time is an additional incentive for the black payer.
“We must focus on ensuring that there are no black payers, that there are no these huge networks that sell and are divided into individual entrepreneurs,” he explained.
Hetmantsev noted that tax evasion, in particular through division into individual entrepreneurs, is one of the reasons why the International Monetary Fund is urging Ukraine to abandon VAT benefits for self-employed entrepreneurs.
“If you do not know how to administer, allow big business to mimic small business and brazenly evade VAT, why should we give you money to pay salaries to teachers, doctors, to pay pensions and so on?” the parliamentarian described the situation.
Recall that in early February, information appeared that the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine was completing the development of a draft law that provides for an increase in taxes for businesses, and plans to soften it in terms of introducing VAT for individual entrepreneurs.
