The Ukrainian government intends to make a decision on nearly halving the number of state tax inspections, from 311 to 161, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk has said.

"In addition to halving the number of checks, we will reduce the staff of the State Fiscal Service by 17,000 employees by the end of the year," he said while opening a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers in Kyiv.

Service head Roman Nasirov said that the service currently employs 58,000 people, but from the New Year their number will be reduced to 41,000 people and the composition of the new staff will be developed jointly with the Ministry of Finance.

According to him, a new HR team has been working in the service for two months and this team will start to test new personnel next week. Nasirov added that all the employees will pass psychological and professional tests and applicants for a number of risky positions will undergo polygraph tests.

Nasirov said that a bill currently on the floor of the Verkhovna Rada provides for reducing the number of legal entities within the agency from 370 to 25 – one service per region with a transparent tender to selected the heads of each branch.