The Ukrainian budget included revenues from “Polubotok gold”
Due to the unrealistic plans of the Ukrainian Ministry of Finance, the implementation of the revenue side of Ukraine’s budget for 2017 is at enormous risk.
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Oleg Ustenko, executive director of the Blazer International Foundation, stated this at a press conference in Kyiv.
“This year the privatization program has been completed by less than one percent, but next year 17,5 billion hryvnia are earmarked for income from privatization,” the expert said. – A huge question: will we be able to get this money at all? The second big question is the money they are trying to find from the previous government. Can we find them? It’s like searching for Polubotok’s barrels of gold.”
He also emphasized that there are many doubts that the increase in excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol will bring the expected revenue to the budget revenues for next year.
“If the whole world raised excise taxes at an average annual rate of 10 to 15 percent, the Ukrainian Ministry of Finance sets a 30 percent increase for tobacco,” Ustenko noted. – If they make such a sharp increase, can we trust that smuggling channels will not open in our country? Then the budget risks running out of funds altogether. In the event of a sharp increase in excise taxes on alcohol, it is worth thinking about a sharp increase in counterfeit products... If everything is so, and the revenue side of the budget is under enormous risks, do we continue to believe that the state budget deficit could amount to three percent of GDP? If it is expanded, how are we going to finance it?”
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