IMF mission concludes its work in Kyiv, risk of program review failure averted – MP
Kyiv • UNN
The mission has completed its work, and the risks to receiving the $686 million tranche have been removed. The IMF has postponed the taxation of individual entrepreneurs (FOPs) and expects revenues from the de-shadowing of the economy.
The IMF mission has concluded its work in Kyiv and moved on to preparing the final agreements following the first review of the EFF program; the risk of the program review falling through has been removed. This was reported by Member of Parliament and Deputy Chair of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Tax, and Customs Policy, Olha Vasylevska-Smahliuk, according to UNN.
The IMF mission has concluded its work in Kyiv and moved on to preparing the final agreements following the first review of the $8.1 billion EFF program. As far as I am aware, the risk of the program review falling through has been removed
According to her, expanding the fiscal base to fill the budget remains one of the key sticking points in the negotiations.
However, there is a very important change: this time, the IMF is increasingly pushing not for tax rate hikes, but for transparency of financial flows and de-shadowing. This transformation was achieved thanks to the efforts of the Ministry of Finance team and the persistence of Verkhovna Rada deputies, who consistently advocated for exactly this approach
According to her, the IMF agreed to postpone the issue of taxing individual entrepreneurs (FOPs) and instead suggests that government officials find an additional 30 billion hryvnias in state budget revenues to compensate for the FOP proposal.
Leaks have already appeared in the media stating that the IMF agreed to postpone the deadline for passing the law on the taxation of parcels until the end of July. Thus, the risks to Ukraine receiving the next loan tranche of $686 million have been removed. But it is interesting that there is still no official announcement from the Ministry of Finance or the IMF regarding the achievement of a Staff-Level Agreement. This could mean that some nuances might appear in the final version of the formalized agreements. I hope the list of obligations will include the draft law on Ukraine's accession to the Single Euro Payments Area — SEPA. There are such rumors. It will be very good if such a requirement indeed appears