Hetmantsev created a club for business with preferences, but assures that the rules are the same for everyone
Kyiv • UNN
Hetmantsev created a club for business with preferences, but assures that the rules are the same for everyone.
The head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Taxation and Customs Policy, Danylo Hetmantsev, said he is working to create a uniform working environment for business, UNN correspondent reports.
"We get a clear demand from white business to the state to ensure a level playing field, to ensure equal rules. And this is exactly what we are doing now, we are eliminating imbalances, eliminating gaps, eliminating those places where there is underpayment of taxes and where there are additional advantages, non-competitive advantages through tax evasion, and making the law uniform for all and the rules uniform for all. This is, in fact, the general trend of tax policy today," Hetmantsev said at a forum in Kyiv.
At the same time, such a statement by the head of the Rada's tax committee looks very strange. After all, Ukraine has recently enacted the law on the White Business Club, which creates preferences for selected companies.
The expert community is unanimous in saying that this legislative initiative of Hetmantsev contains major corruption risks and discriminatory rules for entrepreneurs.
"This is discrimination, this is discretion and this is a violation of the Constitution. According to the Constitution, everyone is equal before the law. This law creates the conditions under which someone has preferences, and the model by which it is determined whether a company should be included in the White Business Club or not is based on their performance there being better than the market average. But this is a market, this is a free economy - someone works better, someone works worse, and the idea itself is unconstitutional," said Anatoliy Amelin, a member of the Board of Fellows at The Aspen Institute Kyiv, director of economic programs at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future.
So what kind of equal conditions is Hetmantsev talking about if some people get "perks" from the tax authorities, while others who have not become members of the club of the elect are automatically considered "gray"?
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It is worth noting that the business environment is negative and skeptical about the idea of creating a "White Business Club". This is evidenced by the data of the Advanter Group research. In December this year, experts interviewed 554 business owners and managers.
According to the survey, less than 1% of companies were automatically included in the club of the chosen ones. Another 1.3% had to make considerable efforts to get preferences.
At the same time, 13% of respondents hope to join the White Business Club, and 3.9% believe they are doing everything necessary for this.
Almost 25% of the surveyed businessmen said they did not hope to be among the chosen ones, and, interestingly, more than 56% did not know what the White Business Club was.
According to the survey, the attitude of businesses to the initiative to create the White Business Club is more negative. Almost 40% do not understand this initiative at all.
By business size, the distribution looks like this:
The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine has passed the scandalous draft law on the White Business Club by the head of the parliament's tax committee, Danylo Hetmantsev. The document was criticized by both Mr. Hetmantsev's colleagues in parliament and experts. Even legal opinions stated that it did not comply with Ukrainian legislation. In addition, the creation of the White Business Club in Ukraine was the first anti-reform in a long time .
In their comments to UNN, economic experts pointed out that the document violates the Constitution of Ukraine and creates discriminatory conditions in the business environment.
The fact that Hetmantsev's draft law contains discriminatory norms and has corruption risks, is also stated in the conclusion of analysts of the Union of Ukrainian Entrepreneurs.
Business Ombudsman Roman Vashchuk also stated that the draft law on the "White Business Club" is discriminatory.
