Government’s decision on checking the companies on informally employed workers without warning, will have a negative impact on Ukraine’s business climate, considers the member of the UKROP political council, deputy of Kyiv regional council Denys Borysenko.
“Taking into account the recent controversial visit of the Security Service to Dragon Capital this is rather a minus than a plus for the business climate and government’s image of being friendly to business,” wrote Denys Borysenko on his Facebook page.
The UKROP representative considers that the Cabinet of Ministers has resorted to such a step for the sake of filling budget, as against the background of falling industry and agriculture penalizing businesses helps tax authorities to carry out the plan. Thus, according to the State Fiscal Service, only during the first quarter of 2017 there were 34% more taxes paid to budget than during the same period in 2016.
“The budget is filled with old schemes – through inspections and penalties. Last year nearly 61% of small and medium enterprises were fined. The average penalty is 25 thousand UAH. But this is not the limit. For interfering with checking, businessmen will pay 320 thousand UAH, and every employee who “will not satisfy” the inspector – 96 thousand UAH. Any checker would like to work under such conditions, wouldn’t he? And what kind of business would withstand such a pressure?” mentioned the politician.
Denys Borysenko has also stressed that businesses are punished unequally. Thus, the maximum penalty for illegal logging, which brings millions of profit, is 188 times less than preventing inspector – only 1700 UAH.
The UKROP representative is convinced that inspections and fines in a current situation will not make business to pay taxes better, but only drive it even deeper into the shadows. So first the state should ease the tax burden and take care of the necessary conditions for business and only then start to put payment of taxes in order through checks and penalties.
