The head of the parliamentary committee on finance, banking, tax and customs policy, Vitaliy Khomutynnyk, has reported that a bill on luxury tax will be adopted at the next plenary sitting.
According to him, if MPs vote for the law, it will come into force on January 1, 2013, in order not to disrupt the budget year, and so that people can plan their expenses,” he said.
Khomutynnyk also noted that three alternative bills on luxury taxation have been registered at Verkhovna Rada. Among them is a bill drawn up by the Cabinet of Ministers.
“We came to agreement to create a working group consisting of the authors of the bill, the Cabinet of Ministers, the Finance Ministry, and the State Tax Service to process all of the bills by the next plenary week and form consolidated proposals,” the MP said.
He also noted that the Cabinet of Ministers proposed to introduce a luxury tax on flats that exceed 200 square meters in area, and for houses over 500 square meters.
The Cabinet of Ministers also proposes to impose a tax on expensive cars, jewelry, expensive watches and fur goods.
Khomutynnk said every article in the submitted bill would be considered.
“I’m not sure that this version will be the one finally adopted, particularly given its present form,” he said.
The head of the committee also said he did not agree with the conclusions of the representatives of the Cabinet of Ministers that the tax on luxury will bring the state budget only UAH 500 million annually.
“I’m not sure that these estimates correspond to reality,” he said, adding that if the tax on wealth is introduced, it could even raise several billion hryvnias for the state budget.
At the same time, as a correspondent of Interfax-Ukraine reported, the parliamentary committee on finance, banking, tax and customs policy at its sitting on Wednesday decided to postpone the taking of decision on the governmental bill (No. 10558) on taxation of wealth and luxury goods until its next sitting.
At the sitting of the committee, the director of the tax and customs policy department of the Finance Ministry, Mykola Chmeruk, said the document proposed to introduce separate taxes on real estate and personal belongings that could be classed as luxury goods, as well as introduce amendments to the sizes of local taxes.
“This law introduces a tax on wealth on modern mobile phones, like smartphones, but we all know simple phones with mechanical buttons won’t even be on sale in a few years. So what do we introduce the tax on?” Regions Party MP Yuriy Karakay said.
The majority of the committee’s members criticized the bill, suggesting that another approach to the tax on wealth is necessary: a tax on income, rather than goods.
“We should discuss the concept, maybe we really need a progressive taxation scale on the income of individuals instead of the luxury goods or an improvement of the tax on real estate,” the committee’s head said.
Moreover, members of the committee stressed that few countries have a tax on wealth, and those that do have had problems in applying it.
As reported, the Verkhovna Rada on June 5 registered a bill of the Cabinet of Ministers “On amendments into the Tax Code of Ukraine to levy a tax on luxury goods” (No. 10588) that proposes to attract extra UAH 500 million to the state budget in 2013.
The document proposes to introduce a tax on the luxury goods of individuals. In particular, it proposes to impose additional taxes on expensive cars, aircraft, motorcycles, large estates and land plots, and elite goods and clothes worth EUR 2,000 and more.
