Before increasing the tax burden on Ukrainians, the authorities should explain what amount of funds the State Budget needs, for what needs, and whether the possibilities of reducing non-targeted expenses during the war have been exhausted. This was stated by Petro Poroshenko during the briefing. He also noted that an increase in military levies would put a significant strain on people’s legal incomes, reduce purchasing power, and ultimately hit the economy.
“The basis for any tax legislation should be stability and predictability. Before the government comes up with such initiatives and registers them in the Verkhovna Rada, there must be a broad discussion, explanation, and argumentation. Taxes, regardless of their size, should be fair,” the fifth President is convinced.
“The authorities started with a shocking figure – allegedly the country urgently needs UAH 500 billion to finance the army. Otherwise, already in August – September, the army will remain without funding, the soldiers will remain without salaries,” Poroshenko reminded. He noted that later it was about UAH 140 billion, and after the meeting of the tax committee, the amount changed again to UAH 30 billion.
“The authorities must justify that this money is used to provide money for the soldiers, that it is used for the purchase of weapons and ammunition, FPV and electronic warfare equipment, and when it will be delivered. What – for the construction of fortifications. These approved and declared expenses should not be touched,” Poroshenko is convinced.
“The first thing we should start with is cutting unnecessary expenses. How can you raise taxes on the least protected sections of the population, when you easily spend 2 billion on a “single” marathon that no one needs? Hundreds of millions to finance the “Rada” channel – this was never voted on by the VRU but is allegedly spent on the needs of the parliament. The third position is the financing of road construction. 17 billion this year, including the front-line territories in the Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Donetsk regions. What are you doing and why are you, again, taking this money for the construction of fortifications,” Poroshenko states.
He also called for reducing the costs of maintaining the state apparatus. “There are 8 million fewer people left in the country. And if the number of people to whom the government is supposed to provide services decreases, there should be a corresponding reduction in the number of the government,” Poroshenko believes.
He also harshly criticized the so-called idea of “national cashback,” which requires at least UAH 3 billion from the budget: “Do you take from teachers, doctors, cleaners, orderlies, nurses to give cashback? Remove funding for industrial parks. Remove the funding of such incentives that destroy the competitive environment in Ukraine.”
“The principle of justice requires that no salary in Ukraine can be higher than the salary of a soldier at the front. A soldier at the front receives an additional payment of 100,000 hryvnias. No one in Ukraine can receive the amount of payments, the source of which is the state budget or state enterprises, including employees of supervisory boards of railways, banks, more than a soldier at the front,” Petro Poroshenko emphasizes. He also called to make the information about the salaries of officials public to the public.
“People have the right to know your salary. During the war, please declare how much your maintenance costs the state and the budget. It is necessary to return to the issue of income declaration and reporting to the NACP through electronic declarations of advisers of the President’s Office and other power structures that make fateful decisions, are allowed to make important decisions, and do not report anything to anyone,” said Poroshenko.
“We do not have the right to adopt the budget until the Economic Security Bureau and the Accounting Chamber are restarted, and the transparent work of the customs office is ensured,” Poroshenko emphasizes.
On the conviction of the leader of Eurosolidarity, the military personal income tax and military collection funds should be accumulated in a special account exclusively for the needs of the Defense Forces. “To ensure the transparency of the use of funds, our political team demands that all financing of the army through amendments to the Budget Code and the law “On the State Budget” be financed exclusively through a special fund. If you need money exclusively and only to finance the Armed Forces, send it to the special fund of the military collection and distribute it exclusively to the goals and tasks defined by law,” says Poroshenko.
He also noted that the withdrawal of the military personal income tax from the budget of communities a year ago, as expected, worsened the provision of the Armed Forces. “Finally, the authorities were forced to recognize the rightness of our position. It turns out that 43% of the funds that were taken back in November last year, in the form of specific ammunition and mechanisms, went to the front. And now the soldier at the front has been waiting for FPV drones for 9 months, and the trench EW does not have it. What price did Ukraine, the Armed Forces, and our army pay for the 9-month delay with this supply?” Poroshenko was indignant.
According to him, the relevant legislative initiatives will be submitted to the parliament in the coming days.