A survey conducted by the Sociopolis research company among individual entrepreneurs showed that entrepreneurs have the most negative attitude toward the work of the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Taxation and Customs Policy, Danylo Hetmantsev, UNN reports.
According to the survey, among the country's top leadership and representatives of the "economic bloc" of the country's leadership, the most positive attitude of individual entrepreneurs is towards President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy. 66.6% of respondents have a positive attitude toward him (including 32.1% who are completely positive, and 34.5% who are rather positive than negative). Almost 30% of respondents have a negative attitude toward Volodymyr Zelenskyy, including 15.2% who are rather negative than positive, and 14.4% who are completely negative.
Among the other government officials surveyed, the majority of respondents are familiar with the Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal (only 14.2% of respondents know nothing about him) and the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Taxation and Customs Policy Danylo Hetmantsev (25.6% of respondents know nothing about him).
Among the government officials surveyed (excluding President Volodymyr Zelenskyi, who is viewed positively by the majority of respondents), a close to neutral ratio of positive and negative attitudes of individual entrepreneurs was recorded for Serhii Marchenko (+0.2%) and Denys Shmyhal (-0.5%).
The most negative attitude of the surveyed individual entrepreneurs is towards MP Danylo Hetmantsev (difference between positive and negative attitudes - -46.8%), as well as to the acting Head of the State Customs Service of Ukraine Serhiy Zvyagintsev (-28.6%) and the acting Head of the State Tax Service of Ukraine Tetiana Kiriyenko (-20.5%).
In the opinion of individual entrepreneurs, among the country's government officials, the two who have the greatest real influence on the management of Ukraine's economy (in general) (excluding the President) are Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and MP, Chairman of the relevant committee of the Verkhovna Rada Hetmantsev. These two government officials were named by 29.6% and 23.1% of all respondents, respectively, and 41.6% and 32.5% of those who have not decided on their answer to this question. Other representatives of the authorities were mentioned by significantly fewer respondents.
When asked who among the representatives of the "economic bloc" of the state authorities has the most negative impact on the work and development of small and medium-sized businesses in Ukraine, the largest number of respondents named Danylo Hetmantsev (39.5% of all respondents and 57.2% of those who have not decided on their answer).
Next, with a significant lag behind Hetmantsev, in the "rating" of negative impact on small and medium-sized businesses in the country (in the perception of the surveyed individual entrepreneurs) are Denys Shmyhal (11.2% of all respondents and 16.2% of those who have not decided on the answer to this question); acting acting State Tax Service of Ukraine Tetiana Kiriyenko Acting Head of the State Tax Service of Ukraine Tetiana Kiriyenko (10.7% and 15.5% respectively) and Acting Head of the State Customs Service of Ukraine Serhiy Zvyagintsev (9.3% and 13.5% respectively). No more than 6% of respondents named other leaders of the "economic bloc" in response to this question.
It should be added that, according to the survey, approximately one in three surveyed sole proprietors has faced any unjustified restrictions or obstacles from the state in conducting business as a sole proprietor in the past six months.
At the same time, 12.2% of respondents said that they had faced such restrictions and obstacles from the state to a large extent over the past six months, and 21.7% of respondents had faced them to a small extent. The most common restrictions and obstacles imposed by the state on sole proprietorships were tax audits and unjustified fines (mentioned by 38.0% of respondents who had faced restrictions and obstacles from the state in conducting their business as a sole proprietor) and excessive bureaucracy of government agencies (35.6%).
For reference
The survey will be conducted from December 10 to 18, 2023. The target audience is residents of Ukraine aged 18 and over who were registered as individual entrepreneurs as of the date of the survey.
The survey did not cover the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the city of Sevastopol, certain districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions and other temporarily occupied territories where there was no mobile coverage by Ukrainian operators at the time of the survey. The method of the survey was CATI (Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviews) based on a random sample of mobile phone numbers of individual entrepreneurs.
The sample size is 605 respondents. The sample is representative of the entire population of individual entrepreneurs in Ukraine in terms of the region of registration and the main type of activity. The standard error without taking into account the design effect at the ratio of dichotomous variables from 0.1:0.9 to 0.5:0.5 with a confidence level of 0.95 does not exceed 2.4-3.9%.