Parliament abolishes pension duty from cashless purchase/sale of currencies
2011-01-13 16:35:16
The Verkhovna Rada has approved amendments to the law on duty for mandatory state pension insurance (draft law No. 7534), by which the pension duty is abolished from purchase/sale operations of cashless currency.
"The law abolishes a duty for mandatory state pension insurance from operations on purchase/sale of cashless foreign currency for the hryvnia," the Verkhovna Rada website reads.
On January 11, this law has been considered by the Verkhovna Rada, but failed to get the necessary support.
Draft law No.7532 was developed by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) within the frames of agreements with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). By the NBU estimate, levying of this duty restricted an inflow of foreign investments to Ukraine and hampered objective determination of the exchange rate.
Members of the Parliamentary Committee on the affairs of pensioners, veterans and disabled persons stood against this bill, since the Pension Fund deficit in 2010 made up UAH 27 billion, and in 2011, it is planned at UAH 17 billion.
The duty from cashless currency operations in Ukraine was introduced in 1998 as a temporary measure for support of the Pension Fund. Till 2006, its rate made up 1.5%, in 2006- 1.3%, in 2007- 1%, in 2008 - 0.5%, in 2009 - 0.2%, but in the first half of 2010 it returned to the level of 0.5% of the transaction amount. On the IMF requirement, which is the largest external creditor of the country, since July 2010, Ukraine stopped levying this duty.