Taxing... a sorrow

Members of Parliament Yaroslav Sukhy (Party of Regions) and Kateryna Lukianova (NU-NS), the authors of the childlessness tax bill, explain that this will add to the central budget revenues while boosting Ukraine’s birthrate. The bill reads that all childless citizens aged 30 will pay an increased 17 percent individual income tax, while all families with one or two offsprings will keep paying the usual 15 percent income tax, and the large families will pay between 10 and 5 percent, depending on the number of children. If and when this bill is adopted, a-b-c-degree disabled persons will be exempted from this tax.

Social networks responded to this bill by holding active discussions, with young people reminding the Ukrainian MPs of the fact that not all people are physically or mentally able to have children, that this is a matter of individual choice, a human right that must be respected; that this bill is an intrusion on one’s private life, an act of disrespect for the individual who has the right of choice. Human rights activists agree with this point of view.

“Married couples can have no children for a variety of reasons, ranging from physical to mental or financial ones. Each such family bears this cross. After all, 25 percent of the residents of Ukraine consider themselves to be below the poverty level. There are people [couples] who don’t want to have children for reasons best known to them. I think that this tax can’t be levied on them, for this would mean an intrusion on their private life,” says Yevhen Zakharov, chairman of the Helsinki Watchdog Committee in Ukraine.

“Isn’t the current 15 percent tax an intrusion? You don’t want to have children, so what? The least I’m concerned about are the figures in this bill; these figures can vary, considering that we raise and/or lower the tax rate. I believe that a family with children should be better off than a childless one,” says Kateryna Lukianova, MP (NU-NS), co-author of the childlessness tax bill.

SOVIET STANDARD?

Public response to this bill would have been far less negative, had it provided for a lower individual income tax rate for large families. Instead, it is another attempt on the part of the government to raise it, as practised during Soviet times.

Yevhen Zakharov: “This bill is an awkward reconstruction of the Soviet attitude to the issue. It is an infringement on private life; it runs counter to Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights that reads: “1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home, and his correspondence.” The Constitution forbids any intrusion on one’s private life, so this bill is the current administration’s apparent attempt to intrude on Ukrainians’ private life. There is no way to support it.”

Olena Palii, head of the longevity and health care department, Ptukha Institute of Demography and Social Study under the aegis of the National Academy of Science of Ukraine: “Foreign experience shows that a higher childlessness tax rate requires a lower one for the large families, including tax concessions and progressive income tax scale.”

NO STATISTICS, NO PROBLEMS

The Day was told by the Ministry of Health of Ukraine (MHU) that there are no childless family statistics. MHU press service’s response was: “Such statistics were possible during Soviet times, what with the tax on childlessness. There are no such statistics now; if a family doesn’t have children, why should they put this on record? So far this remains one’s private affair.”

Lucien GORDIN, Ph.D. (Law), lecturer, Yaroslav Mudry National Law Academy (Kharkiv), insists that the lack of such statistics is no problem (he took part in the drawing up of the bill): “There is simple mathematics, the ratio of people belonging to certain age groups, with or without children, including children aged between one month and 16 years. There is no problem singling out childless people past 30 years.”

This bill leaves another question open: How about the couples that can’t have children for health reasons? The state should work out and implement a comprehensive preventive care and medical treatment program aimed at helping such infertile couples.

Kateryna Lukianova: “I have the MHU’s official response. It reads that there are no childlessness statistics. I think it is an absolutely incomprehensible situation, but if there are no such statistics, there are no couples that can’t have children.”

She believes this bill will raise this problem “to a new [higher] level, so it can be heard by the Ministry of Health.”

The Day asked MHU whether they had any childlessness statistics. Its press service’s response was that some might be found, and that finding this data would take a week.

Lukianova says between one and two out of that 25 percent of the childless couples, off the record, are physically incapable of having children, with the rest suffering this infertility because of low living standard, bad habits, and environment: “Such problems should have started being dealt with from birth; parents and schoolteachers should be taught to cope with them, then this percentage would be considerably lower.”

She had nothing to say on how this bill [if passed by parliament] could help solve this problem though.

TO PAY OR TO GIVE BIRTH?

Those opposing the bill can’t figure out how it will help solve the infertility problem and raise birthrate in Ukraine. They say the bill is aimed at patching up holes in the central budget. Lukianova disagrees: “They’re accusing me of intruding on my fellow citizens’ private life. I simply suggest that our society consider certain problems at different angles. I believe that family and children must be at the basis of every reform, every public initiative.”

Olena Palii: “That’s ridiculous. The difference between the tax rates, however small, can’t increase the childbirth rate in Ukraine, considering that serious measures have been taken, to no avail. It is true that this rate rose after the government instituted a childbirth monetary relief program, but it didn’t last long. What we need are fundamental systemic changes rather than childbirth relief payments. Now we hear about the lack of daycare centers. Polls show that housing is the biggest problem that faces each young couple. Solving this problem will automatically solve the demographic issue in Ukraine.”