OREANDA-NEWS. June 17, 2010. The Government for the first time in the past six years began to reform the tax system through significantly reduction of the tax burden on businesses. Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov said this during "Exam for power" program at First National channel.

Mykola Azarov reminded that the Government, in which he had worked under the leadership of Viktor Yanukovych in 2004, had started the tax reform, significantly reduced the income tax and set the linear scale of 13%. In the same year, according to him, the Government had reached the highest GDP growth of 12.6%.

The Prime Minister stressed that the Tax code designed by the Government significantly reduces the number of both national and local taxes: "We submit to the Parliament the Tax code in which for the first time in the last six years we continue our policy of tax cuts, so, the new Tax code provides for the gradual, within 5 years, income tax and value added tax reduction by 1 % annually".

According to Mykola Azarov, this will improve the economic situation in Ukraine and attract foreign investments. "We stake on new investments to come, new productions, efficient factories, plants to be built, new jobs to appear and they will be of a new quality", he said.

Mykola Azarov added that the new Tax code provides tax holidays for 5 years for small business in the sphere of providing personal services and the introduction of tax on luxury, particularly, high interest rate for housing with an area of more than 500 square meters. Mykola Azarov stressed that by such actions the Government will gradually reduce social inequality in the country.

The Prime Minister also noted that the new Tax code submitted to the Parliament passes the standards of the EU tax legislation.