24 May 2024, Friday, 12:46 873

It is not appropriate to increase taxes, because Finance Ministry constantly over-executes state budget - macroeconomist Kukhar

Editor: Daria Zubkova

Читати українською

Share:
Copied

The senior economist of Ukraine Economic Outlook, Mykhailo Kukhar, believes that it is not appropriate to increase taxes, because the Ministry of Finance constantly over-executes the state budget.

He wrote about this on his Facebook page, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

"Over-execution of the tax budget for April +9.5%, customs +14.8% above the plan. The Ministry of Finance has already submitted to the parliament amendments to the law on the budget-2024, which, in fact, admitted its mistake in forecasting revenues and increased the forecast for year by UAH 132 billion (+7.5%)," the economist wrote.

According to his data, tax revenues to the state budget as of May 1 amounted to UAH 523 billion (62%), non-tax revenues - UAH 276 billion (33%), of which about UAH 170 billion were the own revenues of budgetary institutions (the lion's share of which came from external sources).

Direct grants received amounted to UAH 40.2 billion (5%).

Among tax revenues, revenues from domestic and import VAT traditionally make the largest contribution - UAH 241 billion, or 45.9% since the beginning of the year.

The main share of revenues falls precisely on import VAT (UAH 148 billion - 62%), and it grows faster than revenues from domestic VAT (UAH 92 billion - 38%).

At the same time, in April-March, an increase in import VAT revenues was observed, on average, up to UAH 40 billion, as a result of the gradual lifting of the blockade of the border with Poland.

For the same reason, most likely, the customs overachieved the April plan by 14.8%, or +UAH 6.3 billion, when the tax office reported a 9.5% over-execution (+UAH 5.2 billion).

It should also be noted that a significant part of state budget revenues continues to be formed at the expense of budget institutions' own revenues, which have received about UAH 170 billion since the beginning of the year, and only UAH 17 billion are actual revenues from operating activities (20% of the total revenues of the state budget).

Kukhar added that the Ministry of Finance has already revised its forecast and increased the revised income plan by +UAH 132 billion (+7.5% to the draft budget) to UAH 1.9 trillion, and expenditures to UAH 3.49 trillion, or +UAH 180 billion (+5%).

According to the results of March, defense expenditures of the budget were fully financed by internal revenues and borrowings with a coverage level of 107%.

According to the results of March, the Ministry of Finance again increased the operational plan of revenues and expenditures of the state budget to UAH 1.9 trillion and UAH 3.49 trillion, or +7.5% and +5% to the draft budget, respectively.

In the current version of the law on the budget, the revenue part continues to remain at the level of only UAH 1.76 trillion of budget institutions.

Thus, budget revenues will amount to over UAH 2.64 trillion (+50% to the plan), against UAH 2.67 trillion in 2023 (-1%).

According to forecast calculations of Ukraine Economic Outlook, in the current year the budget will again be over-executed by the amount of UAH 1 trillion (over-execution of the 2023 budget compared to the initial plan of UAH 1.1 trillion).

In fact, the Ministry of Finance has already recognized the underestimation of the revenues of the 2024 budget by submitting amendments to it, which take into account the over-execution of the tax budget by +9.5% (by UAH 132 billion plus the initial plan of the current year).

Against this background, any increase in taxes in order to attract an additional UAH 200-300 billion is impractical given the fact that the statistics of budget over-execution in the first four months of the year clearly indicate that the budget will be over-executed by significantly higher amounts without any tax increase.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, Danylo Hetmantsev predicts an increase in VAT, military tax and excise taxes.