17:41 02.10.2024

Rada committee head: Situation in country requires increase in military tax, VAT

2 min read
Rada committee head: Situation in country requires increase in military tax, VAT

The solution to the problem of collecting the missing funds for the army is to increase both the military tax and the value-added tax (VAT), Head of the Verkhovna Rada's Committee on finance, tax and customs policy Danylo Hetmantsev said at the Business and War forum organized by NV in Kyiv on Wednesday.

"When the government approaches its citizens and says 'I don't have enough for the army, please, let's all contribute to this sacred cause, and we need to do it quickly,' there are only two answers to this today – the military tax and VAT," he said.

"Only these two powerful taxes that can quickly collect money for the budget from all taxpayers equally," he said.

Hetmantsev believes the introduction of luxury taxes is ineffective. "When we start to define an exhaustive list of luxury goods, we can never reach an agreement with anyone," the committee's head said.

He said the proposed rates for individual goods also drew criticism. "Why should jewelry have to pay 30%, 15% for cars, and 5% for apartments and bank gold? There was no argument. And, indeed, there probably cannot be one," Hetmantsev said.

According to him, the third argument against these taxes was their small fiscal effect: "we get a fairly large group of dissatisfied people and a fiscal effect of three to four billion from the introduction of any of these types of taxes."

According to the committee's head, raising the military tax and VAT is a fair approach.

"The argument that the military tax is paid only by white businesses that pay white salaries, and those who pay in envelopes do not pay taxes is absolutely true, but this applies to any taxes, absolutely all taxes. Therefore, there are no 100% arguments in favor of either the military tax or the VAT," Hetmantsev said.

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