Problemi Ekonomiki (Dec 2017)
The Ideology, Pragmatics, and Effectiveness of the Tax Reform in Ukraine
Abstract
The article is dedicated to the assessment of the ideology and pragmatics of the tax reforms in Ukraine. The author’s approach to studying the problem differs from the traditional approaches, which are focused on assessing the fiscal effectiveness of taxes, and is aimed at evaluating the validity of such reforms and their benefits for the society with consideration for long-term development of the country. The purpose of the article is to assess the ideology and pragmatics of the tax reforms in terms of their validity and effectiveness for the society. There analyzed the vectors of the tax reforms concerning the main budget-forming taxes: profit tax, personal income tax, VAT. A comparative analysis of the trends in taxation of incomes and value added in Ukraine and the world is carried out. It is substantiated that the goals of the tax reforms declared by the authorities in Ukraine were either contrived or were never achieved. The real goals of the endless reforming were the creation of broad opportunities to avoid taxation on the “legitimate” grounds for the oligarchic clans. It was the avoidance of taxation that created the prerequisites for their accelerated enrichment, which was used mainly with unproductive purposes and did not contribute to the development of the national economy. In view of this, we consider it necessary to give a negative assessment of the tax reforms that were carried out in Ukraine. In addition, the result of the tax reforms was the inadequate filling of the budget with tax revenues and, consequently, very limited financing of the social sphere, whose state is recognized by the government itself as at the least unsatisfactory, being in fact catastrophic. Thus, the impartial assessment of the tax reforms in Ukraine testifies both to their inefficiency, and the negative consequences for the society, on the one hand, and the full realization of the targets for the oligarchs, on the other.
