Ukrainian farmers are capitalising on the conflict because they can avoid paying taxes, The Economist reports.
“Businesses are taking advantage of the chaos and evading paying their fair share to the budget. And this is especially true for agriculture, which accounted for up to 40% of Ukrainian export revenues before the fighting,” RIA Novosti quoted the publication as saying.
The authors found out that there are several ways to avoid paying taxes. The first is to use cash and barter. The second involves declaring their fields unsuitable for agricultural activity, allegedly because of mines and unexploded ordnance, and this allows them not to declare their harvest. And the third one is falsification of documents with understatement of income for export.
Earlier it was reported that the Ukrainian state budget lost up to $400m in February due to a decrease in imports of goods and services caused by the transport blockade on the border with Poland.
