The Ministry of Finance wants to "reap" local communities, taking away from them 120 billion UAH "military" PIT - expert

The Law of 10037, among other things, provides for the deprivation of local communities tax on the income of individuals paid by the military as well as police in these communities. The innovation is planned to be put into effect from October 1 and continued until the end of 2024.

During this time, about UAH 120 billion wants to be removed from local communities and transferred to the state budget, distributing equally between the State Secretariat (for the purchase of drones) and the Ministry of Stratege (for the financing of government orders for the production of domestic weapons). The publication notes that the Ministry of Finance's perception of these funds as "unnecessary" for communities is false.

"First, in practice, communities compete for obtaining the right to register a military unit. And one of the conditions of the military is the maximum support of the armed forces by the community. There are numerous confirmations from the military that the communities really support them and provide them" , - the author writes.

"Removal of the military PIT will weaken the community, deprive its ability to assist the forces of defense and provide quality services to residents, because the state does not fulfill its obligations at present," - it is said, for example, in one of the requests The Ministry of Internal Affairs that cooperate with the community in Chernihiv.

According to the analysis of the Center for Economic Strategy, the "excessive" military tax usually compensates for the arrears from lost jobs through destroyed enterprises and departure of forced displaced persons. "If you take away military PITs from communities, after the redistribution of funds, the number of scarce budgets will double - they will be 543 against today 227 (in total in Ukraine about 1500 communities).

These communities will not be enough money even on basic functions (education, medicine, social security, communal farm). And that their leaders will have to "beat bows" in Kiev for the sake of receiving sufficient amounts of funds for "alignment of" situation ", - the text of the blog reads. This is not the first initiative of the Ministry of Finance to raise money from local communities. Previously, it was planned to reduce from 64% to 60% percent of PITs to local budgets.

The allowance was introduced in 2021 to cover the difference in tariffs, but instead of the required 62 billion UAH, it brought UAH 19 billion, and for other years the government remained to blame the communities for another 36 billion UAH. "Both initiatives on alleged" search for new sources of budget revenues "concern exclusively local self -government and its powers.

That is, Minister Sergey Marchenko does not plan to improve the situation with shadow schemes at customs and in tax (in one of the interview he said directly It affects these bodies, because there "go the ball" security forces) ", - notes the author of the material.

Shtepa suggests that it is also a political component of the decision, which is to gradually collapse of decentralization and completely correlates with the previous initiatives of the central government, pressure on individual city mayors and attempts to narrow the powers of communities in various areas.

The sociologist adds that the redistribution of the "military PIT" is not the last this kind of Marchenko's initiative, which he intends to promote through the government under the guise of helping the army or other "good intentions". "However, it should be understood that such translation from one pocket to another does not lead to systemic results, and therefore is only an imitation of rapid activity instead of real decisions to improve the situation with state funds," the author summarizes.