Mandatory registration of lease agreements will not happen yet: the Rada is considering a tax reduction for landlords
Kyiv • UNN
The norm on mandatory registration of residential lease agreements has been removed from draft law No. 12377. The Verkhovna Rada plans to adopt it next week and is also considering lowering tax rates for landlords.
There will be no mandatory registration of lease agreements in bill No. 12377, which launches housing reform in Ukraine, but the parliament is already considering amendments to the Tax Code to reduce the rate for landlords, said the head of the relevant committee, People's Deputy from "Servant of the People" Olena Shuliak, writes UNN.
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"From bill No. 12377, the norm on mandatory registration of housing lease agreements by their owners was removed for the second reading," Shuliak is quoted as saying by her political force.
According to her, the Verkhovna Rada plans to adopt bill No. 12377 "On the Basic Principles of Housing Policy" in the second reading "next week." One of its components is the emergence of social housing, but without de-shadowing the already existing private housing rental market in the state, it will be impossible to launch it.
"One of the points of the bill, adopted in the first reading, was the mandatory registration of lease agreements. It was proposed that each lease agreement be necessarily entered into the relevant register so that the state could see who is renting and at what price. But during discussions during the preparation of the document for the second reading, we realized that the public's rejection of this norm would be quite large. And it would simply be impossible to pass the bill through the session hall," Shuliak explained.
According to her, despite the fact that the de-shadowing of the rental market is extremely important for the implementation of an effective housing policy, it will be impossible to do so right now. The main reason is tax rates, because under current legislation, each landlord must pay 23% of the income received from rent in the form of tax.
According to her, landlords will not want to work "officially" now, as they will have to pay almost a quarter of the income received from renting their housing in the form of tax.
"If we now forcibly say: everyone register the agreement, and we, as the state, will observe together with the tax authorities whether you paid taxes or not, then this story will definitely be impassable for neither the parliament nor the market, as it will rightly cause outrage," Shuliak noted.
This norm can only be considered when amendments are made to the Tax Code regarding the reduction of the tax amount, she said.
Currently, she added, work has already begun on reducing tax rates for landlords. Therefore, other rules may apply in rental relations, on which the new housing policy also depends.
"But my personal position is that this is only possible after amendments are made to the Tax Code," Shuliak summarized.