OREANDA-NEWS. December 19, 2011. On December 16, 2011, the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine has had a briefing conducted by Victor Kosarchuk, Head of the Communications Department, and Mykola Chmeruk, Director of Tax and Customs Policy and Accounting Methodology Department on "Outcomes Implementing the Financial Sector Reforms and Harmonizing Tax Laws".

As Victor Kosarchuk said, the Ministry’s legislative initiatives of 2011 adopted a number of laws in one way or another contributing to improving the socio-economic situation in the country, balancing the economy, coming out of the recession and raising living standards.

It is worth saying that the basis for legislative initiatives of the Ministry of Finance have been:

- implementing economic reforms of the President of Ukraine;

- improving the budget process organization and tools.

The most significant legal acts drafted by the Ministry of Finance include:

1. Amending the state budget 2011. In June, additional budgetary resource in amount of 14 billion USD was forwarded to increasing the funding of social care and economic development programs, managing to:

- improve public sector employees’ social care;

- allocate extra 200 million UAH for each of retirement benefit of the disabled people, Chernobyl-affected people and food Chernobyl children;

- substantially increase funding of the urgent needs of individual industries and regions;

- balance local budgets.

On December 7, the Parliament of Ukraine approved amendments to the Law of Ukraine "On State Budget of Ukraine for 2011" to increase social needs funding.

Thus, budget amendments that have been approved provide for extra funds for financial support of vulnerable citizens. In this way, 800.8 million UAH will be provided for additional financial resources to benefit families with children, poor families, disabled children, disabled children and temporary state benefit to children, and disallow the occurrence of these payments’ arrears.

Also, part of the funds will be directed to support local budgets to ensure timely payment of salaries to teachers, doctors, other categories of public sector employees.

To balance local budgets, the amount of additional grants equalizing the financial security of local budgets has been increased by 1070 million UAH, and the amount of the state budget’s subventions to local budgets refunding travel privilege for separate categories of citizens by 162 million UAH.

2. Budget Code of Ukraine amendments enabling to:

- improve basic principles of managing the state (local) publicly guaranteed debt;

- improve transparency of public finances;

- strengthen the financial self-sufficiency of local budgets;

- create conditions for territories to develop sustainably.

3. Improvement of the simplified tax system, in order to improve the tax climate for business doers. It is a reminder that the Law of Ukraine "On Amendments to the Tax Code of Ukraine and other legislative acts of Ukraine concerning the simplified system of taxation, accounting and reporting of small business" has simplified administrative procedures, entitled the individuals doing business to VAT register, increased the maximum amount income at which people can use the simplified tax system, cancelled the restriction to attribute as costs of the income tax payer expenses for the procurement of goods (works, services) from individuals liable to single tax, etc.

Also, Mykola Chmeruk said that the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine has created a scientific practical commentary to the Tax Code of Ukraine simplified tax system.

4. Amendments to the Tax Code of Ukraine and some other legislative acts changing the criteria of the automatic VAT refund, excluding property owners of housing associations out of the tax debt repayment sources, and delaying  the property tax introduction from January 1 to July 1, 2012, etc.

5. Changes in the taxation of goods intended for preparation and holding of Euro 2012, exempting the airports of cities hosting finals of the Football Championship, from import duties when procuring the equipment for airports, terminal facilities and ground handling.

6. Cancellation of export duty rates on wheat and a mixture of wheat and rye, emmer wheat and corn.

7. Enforcing the Court Fee Law, etc.

It is also worth noting that Ministry’s lawmaking actively involved the community, science people, experts, business men, executive and legislative authorities.

"Public Council has launched its activities at the Ministry expected to making an expert evaluation of legal acts", Victor Kosarchuk said.