Ukrainian pharmaceutical manufacturers paid only slightly more than 4.5 billion hryvnias in taxes in 2024. This is almost a billion less than pharmacies, and almost half as much as distributors. This is evidenced by statistics provided by the State Tax Service of Ukraine in response to a request from UNN.
Thus, legal entities and individual entrepreneurs engaged in retail trade of medicines in pharmacies paid about 5.4 billion hryvnias in taxes to the budget in 2024. Distributors in the same year brought more than 9.7 billion hryvnias to the state budget. Manufacturers, on the other hand, only slightly more than 4.5 billion hryvnias.
According to the State Tax Service, pharmaceutical plants paid the least taxes in both 2022 and 2023 - 3.1 billion hryvnias and 3.3 billion hryvnias, respectively.
Representatives of the pharmacy business paid 3.2 billion hryvnias to the budget in the first year of the full-scale invasion, and more than 4 billion hryvnias in 2023.
Distributors brought 6.6 billion hryvnias to the state budget in 2022, and almost 8 billion hryvnias in 2023.
These figures look strange - and even suspicious. It is the manufacturers who form the main part of the cost of medicines - 72%, so it would be logical to expect that it is pharmaceutical plants that are the largest taxpayers in the system.
Economists also point out that such a market model, when pharmaceutical plants pay the least taxes, looks strange.
"Manufacturers paid the least, retailers paid more, distributors paid even more... Theoretically, such a market model can exist, although it looks, indeed, a little strange," economist Oleg Getman said in a comment to UNN. He noted that it is also interesting to look at the statistics on tax payments by company, then it will be possible to understand whether pharmaceutical plants are using shadow schemes to reduce the tax burden.
The assumption about the use of shadow schemes is also confirmed by the actions of law enforcement officers. Earlier, the police conducted searches at the enterprises of several pharmaceutical giants at once - "Darnitsa", "Farmak" and "Arterium".
If the trend continues, pharmaceutical manufacturers will remain the most privileged group in the market - with the lowest tax pressure and high margins. Why the state does not pay attention to such imbalances is an open question.
In a country that is at war, where every hryvnia matters, the situation when pharmaceutical manufacturers remain the most privileged group in the market and demonstrate the lowest fiscal return looks at least unfair. At most - as a sign of systemic evasion schemes. And while pharmacies and distributors are increasing revenues to the budget, large pharmaceutical plants remain in the "shadow".
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