Ukraine Now Has Seventy Official Hryvnia Millionaires

Unlike in past years, the deadline for submitting income declarations by natural persons has been extended for one month to April 1, 2002. As Head of the State Tax Administration’s Main Department For Taxing the Incomes of Natural Persons Serhiy Liekar confirmed on February 11, postponing the deadline is in line with the interests of both categories of taxpayers, legal and natural persons. Another feature of this year’s campaign is that under the new law Ukrainians whose income in 2001 did not exceed three subsistence levels are not obliged to submit tax declarations. This will save them a lot of now unnecessary trouble and administrative sanctions. Of course, if this category of Ukrainians prefers to notify tax authorities about their incomes, their declarations will be accepted and duly processed (in 2000, 414,000 Ukrainians or almost one-fifth of those exempted from declaring their incomes did so). Getting an income declaration form will not be a problem now as they must be handed out free: the tax authorities will install their information and consulting kiosks at large enterprises and in much frequented areas; in addition, the form will be put on the Internet for copying. Filled in declarations can be sent by individuals by mail to their local tax authority. In this case, the date of mailing a declaration will be regarded as the date of its submission.

As indicated by the analysis of declarations, the number of Ukrainians with substantial incomes is growing each year. Stressing this as a positive feature, Mr. Liekar said that the first hryvnia millionaire was registered in 1999, and in 2000 there were already seventy persons whose gross incomes topped the one million figure. In 2001, 2.1 million Ukrainians notified tax authorities about incomes derived not from their basic places of work.