Yatseniuk: cabinet decides not to impose taxes on deposits this year
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy has said that this year the government will not introduce a tax on incomes from bank deposits.
"In the current conditions the introduction of taxation of passive transactions at banks means that this will be used by people to take deposits from banks. We've decided not to introduce taxation of incomes from bank deposits," he said in the parliament on Thursday.
As reported, on March 19, 2014, Yatseniuk said he opposed the idea of imposing taxes on deposit rates and proposed that only deposits that exceed UAH 50,000 should be taxed.
"90% of Ukrainians have deposits up to UAH 50,000. The 10% rich people have to share with the country and society," he said.
He added that he received UAH 614,000 in income from deposits and paid not a kopeck of taxes to the budget.
According to the Tax Code, dividends received by individuals are taxed at a rate of 5% (earlier 15%), while interest rates from deposits will be taxed at the same rate – 5% from January 1, 2015.
According to Interfax-Ukraine's information, the finance ministry proposes that taxation of interest rates from banking deposits is introduced from April 1, 2014 at the rates of 15-17%, which are general rates of taxation of incomes of individuals: 15% for persons with monthly income up to 10 minimum wages and 17% - over 10 minimum wages.
According to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), as of late February deposits of individuals in hryvnias amounted to UAH 233.5 billion, a decline of 7.6% in a month, and by 7.9% since early 2014. Deposits in foreign currency totaled $21.2 billion, a decline of 6.3% in a month and by 7.8% since early 2014.
The average weighted deposit rate in hryvnias in February grew from 11.67% to 14.14% per annum, while in foreign currency it grew from 5.92% to 6.52%.
Taking into account the information from the Finance Ministry that the share of over UAH 100,000 deposits is 70% of total deposits, the proposed taxation of interest rates could bring over UAH 5 billion to the budget every year (if the outflow of deposits from the banking system stops).
The finance ministry on March 21, 2014 proposed increasing the limit for deposits on which interest rate taxes will be imposed, from UAH 50,000 to UAH 100,000.