The mission of the International Monetary Fund, which has been working in Kyiv since late January, supports the priority initiatives of the Income and Tax Ministry of Ukraine, the ministry head, Oleksandr Klymenko, has said.

In an interview published in a Saturday issue of the Dzerkalo Tyzhnia. Ukraine newspaper, Klymenko said that the experts of the mission discussed the further work on the adoption and implementation of the provisions of the bill on transfer pricing.

According to him, the ministry expects certain resistance to the adoption of this bill, however, they believe that the bill will be adopted, and its thorough implementation will bring the state budget additional UAH 0.5 billion in revenues in the first year already, and UAH 1 billion each subsequent year.

"It is time to start to respect our country and pay income [tax] here, all the more so because Ukraine currently offers some of the lowest tax rates in Europe. I will remind you that while during the adoption of the Tax Code, it was 25%, since January 1, 2013, it is 19%. And the rates will continue to decrease, as provided by the Tax Code," the minister said.

Klymenko said that the next initiative, which was supported and got positive assessment from the IMF experts, was the intention to make an inventory of tax preferences. "We have got the support of the IMF and agreed that in the framework of the Fund's technical assistance mission we can fruitfully cooperate to form a clear program of inventory of these benefits," the minister said.

He also said that the IMF experts supported the position of Ukraine's government, in particular, that of the Income and Tax Ministry, which "considers the ratification of the agreement with Cyprus as an additional resource to maintain and increase the balance of the budget." Should the regulations of the new convention be applied, with the similar payment of incomes to Cyprus, the state budget of Ukraine can get additional UAH 1 billion a year, he said.

Speaking about the issue of VAT refund in Ukraine, Klymenko said: "The problem, which has been growing for years is hard to be solved in one fell swoop. We do not deny that, given the current positive trend of the VAT refund, the issue of payment of old debts that have emerged in recent years remains open." At the same time, the minister said Ukraine has already started paying some of the VAT refund debts through the issuing of bonds.