Ministry of Revenues disagrees with the World Bank

The claim that Ukraine has the biggest number of taxes in the world, according to the World Bank's Doing Business rating, is untrue, the Ministry of revenue and duties says.

Firstly, according to the methodology of the World Bank, Paying Taxes ranking, a part of Doing Business ranking, takes into account the number of tax payments per year rather than the total amount of taxes.

Secondly, in the latest Paying Taxes-2013 ranking (as of 2012), World Bank experts, in their assessment of Ukraine’s tax system of in terms of «number of payments,» recorded significant progress: from 135 charges in 2011, to 28. It is not the matter of amount of taxes anymore, but the number of payments.

In this case, the average amount of payments in all countries is 27.2, in Central Asia and Eastern Europe - 30.4. The largest number of payments (24) in Ukraine accounts for taxes on wages, while income tax is administered by one payment.

As of 2012, Ukraine has improved its result in Paying Taxes by 18 points: from 181-th it climbed to 165-th position (considering the fact that last year's 181-st place was replaced by 183-th due to 2 more countries joining the rating).

The World Bank included Ukraine into the list of three countries in the region that for the past 8 years, most significantly reduced the amount of time needed to comply with tax obligations. In terms of «time spent on tax reporting» World Bank experts noted decrease from 657 hours in the previous year to 491 hours in ranking 2012. In terms of «total tax rate» compared to 57.1% in 2011 World Bank experts have recorded a decline to 55.4% in 2012.

Given the ongoing reforms in the tax area (reduced rates of income tax to 19%, development of electronic reporting and, consequently, reducing the time spent on tax compliance, etc.), Ministry of Revenues experts predict a rise in Ukraine's position in Paying Taxes-2014 that assesses performance at the end of 2012. The World Bank will publish the rating in autumn 2013.