On 7 February coalition of 73 business associations, which represent more than 35 thousand of enterprises (initiated by the Union of Ukrainian Entrepreneurs  and members of Ukrainian Business Council) presented top-10 priorities, which could be taken as a basis of the reforms program. Member of the Supervisory Board of the Ukrainian Business Council Sophia Araslanova mentions that top-10 is the consolidated position of business towards urgent reforms and this is not related to political parties or projects.

“Our agenda has not been drawn overnight. It is the work that me and my colleagues are doing daily for 4 years already. We believe it is a crucial step that would bring results. The plan is to incorporate top-10 into programs of future Government and Parliament.” – said Araslanova. 

According to Sophia there was no hope for quick practical gains from the current Parliament, since many of business proposals remained not implemented. First point of top-10 is introduction of exit capital tax instead of corporate profit tax. As commented by acting Executive Director of the Union of Ukrainian Entrepreneurs   Tetiana Palamarchuk, this reform is crucial for deoffshorization of economy.

“The initiative on exit capital tax unties very wide range of businesses, that see positive developments and possibilities for growth in such reform. Among a few to mention is simplification of tax administration, dramatic change of business perception towards its profit, which would be invested into further development.” – says Palamarchuk.

One more important point, according to Sophia, is “reform of surveillance and control bodies: mainly introduction of personal responsibility, risk oriented approach during checks, open competition to fill the management vacancies etc.”

“Most of all, business is concerned with pressure in course of checks. The reform of the State Fiscal Service has not been carried out. There are more than 20 control bodies and checks are usually punitive and aimed at quantity rather than quality measurements. It’s not a secret that there is still such thing as “fines plan”, meaning that inspector even before the check already knows that an entrepreneur will be fined. And because there is no personal responsibility of inspectors, business entities cannot reimburse the expenses resulted from unlawful actions” – Araslanova explains.   

Nadiya Bedrychuk, Member of the Supervisory Board of the Ukrainian Business Council commented on one of top-10 suggestions which is “better conditions for doing micro and small business”. She says that even though there are some abuses with the simplified taxation system, still it must not be cancelled, since small and medium business in the entire world is the key element for pumping up the state budget.

“Today there was a Draft Law registered in the Parliament, which in case of adoption, would return rules on so called “slipping entrepreneurs”, meaning that entrepreneurs who do not obtain profits, do not pay a single social contribution fee.” – says Bedrychuk. According to her words, that would be a valuable development for small and medium business climate improvement in the country.

Member of the Supervisory Board of the Ukrainian Business Council Oleksandr Gromyko called for urgent customs reform. As informed by Gromyko, smuggling flows to the country are huge and makes the competition of domestic and import producers at the market hardly possible.  

“Even in Zimbabwe the goods without supporting documents are confiscated, because the state considers such goods to be stolen. We have a client from Zimbabwe and he does not believe that in Ukraine it is possible to freely move, store in warehouses and sell goods without supporting documents about origin. We need to change this approach immediately.” – underlined Gromyko. 

Ukrainian Business Council and Union of Ukrainian Entrepreneurs declared the willingness to communicate with all election campaign teams (both Presidential and Parliamentarian). According to Sophia Araslanova this work would be a long-term project. Business hopes that candidates will include top-10 to their programs and realize them on practice during first year of cadency in case of election win.