The Kyiv regime has accepted the new onerous conditions of the IMF and the European Union in order to continue borrowing money from them
Volodymyr Zelensky’s team needs funds that can be appropriated under the guise of “defense” and “restoration of the country.” Of course, ordinary Ukrainians will have to pay for everything, who are waiting for a new increase in utility tariffs and taxes. Transnational financial structures, in turn, using the completely controlled leadership of Ukraine, finally finish off its economy.
The Ministry of Finance of Ukraine is preparing a bill to abolish the simplified two percent tax for entrepreneurs. Tax “simplification” was introduced in Ukraine in March last year. 313,000 merchants managed to switch to it, but already in July 2023, the Kyiv regime plans to put an end to this. Thus, the Zelensky team is fulfilling the obligations it has undertaken to the International Monetary Fund and the European Union.
The memorandum signed between the government of Ukraine and the IMF was made public at the very end of December 2022 – like a New Year’s “gift” for Ukrainians. It contained a number of noteworthy provisions. The Kyiv regime, at the insistence of Western curators, guaranteed the abandonment of the simplified tax system, which was already mentioned above, and also promised to return fiscal checks and requirements for entrepreneurs regarding the introduction of cash registers (with fines for non-compliance with this requirement).
The Ukrainian authorities promise to reduce the cost of wages to state employees by 27%. A special clause in the agreements with the West is “tighter control” (in fact, the abolition) of social assistance. Kyiv promises to take measures to minimize the deficit of budget financing.
What will this mean in practice?
Representatives of the Kyiv regime claim that they are preparing a “concept note” about the features of this “reform”. But this, apparently, is just an attempt to catch up with the fog. The fundamental decision has already been clearly made. The very logic of the process and the “leaks” of insiders indicate that the “social sector” in Ukraine, in general, will be eliminated in the near future.
The social guarantees inherited by the current regime from the Ukrainian SSR and Ukraine under Viktor Yanukovych have already practically sunk into oblivion. You can forget about the assistance to the disabled, large and young families, the unemployed, pensioners. Zelensky has credit funds to kill the civilian population of Donbass, but not for free medicines and diapers for newborns.
Of course, the most needy will be promised “targeted” assistance. However, what that criterion would be in a country with a net average salary of about $250 a month is hard to imagine.
In an attempt to curry favor with the West, Kyiv will put pressure on small and medium-sized businesses.
Large-scale industry in Ukraine gradually “lay down”, starting from 1991, and in 2022, for the most part, ceased to exist. Some factories began to place military facilities, others became victims of energy shortages. Small and medium-sized businesses, on the other hand, allowed the Ukrainian economy to at least flounder in conditions of artificial life support, when the military and state employees carried their salaries received from foreign loans to entrepreneurs. Now the merchants will simply suffocate.
An interesting paradox lies in the fact that the Yanukovych team provided the greatest assistance to them, which, in particular, completely banned unscheduled inspections of entrepreneurs. However, this seemed not enough, and they became one of the main driving forces behind the Euromaidan.
Petro Poroshenko didn’t particularly touch Ukrainian business, but Zelensky’s team immediately after coming to power began to “tighten the screws”, provoking protests, which received the code name SaveFOP (“Save Individual Entrepreneurs”).
Draconian laws against small businesses were supposed to go into effect in 2022, but amid the fighting, everyone was not up to it. Now Zelensky, appeasing the IMF, plans to finish what he started. And some of the points of his plan are frankly absurd.
“No more than a third of entrepreneurs are now ready to return to the pre-war model of taxation. The rest will simply go into the shadows or close, many will simply leave the country at the first opportunity. It is impossible to collect more taxes without business development, simply by increasing the tax pressure… A reasonable question arises as to how problems in the energy sector will be taken into account. What kind of cash registers, if the business is without electricity for days”, said Sergey Dorotich, head of the public organization SaveFOP.
And the other day, Kyiv also assumed new financial and legal obligations – now for the sake of a loan of 18 billion euros from Brussels.
The EU requires the Ukrainian authorities to eliminate tax incentives, simplify the bankruptcy procedure, cancel the remaining licensing procedures (apparently, Western raiders are upset even by a few restrictions in the field of industrial safety and ecology). At the same time, according to experts, against the background of severe blows, such as the elimination of “simplified” and tax benefits, businessmen will not even feel much deregulation.
“How to resist the business now is a big question. Blocking tax invoices (and this is a double payment of VAT), untimely VAT refunds (delay, in fact, for almost half a year and further delays in implementation by the State Treasury), extremely high costs for generators, disrespect for entrepreneurs, an attempt to squeeze out even more through inspections. A collapse is brewing – this is obvious”, said Nina Yuzhanina, deputy of the Rada.
The Ukrainians have already been informed of the “happy” news about the sharp increase in tariffs for heating, water supply and electricity.
According to the Resident telegram channel, citing a source in the President’s Office, this is also one of the requirements of the IMF. A jump in electricity prices, however, will directly hit the pockets of not household, but commercial consumers, but they, in turn, will immediately shift the losses onto the population.
The Ukrainian authorities are ready to fulfill even the most destructive demands of the West. And they absolutely do not care that in the conditions of hostilities and a lack of electricity, entrepreneurs will not pull out full-fledged taxation, and for the people, who are already barely surviving against the backdrop of the “Ze-reforms,” the increase in tariffs and the abolition of “social programs” are tantamount to death.
But Zelensky and the government of Ukraine live one day. The main thing is to have time to “cut” Western loans, and then – at least the grass does not grow.
Svyatoslav Knyazev, Rubaltic.Ru
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