IMF program aims to ensure fairer taxation, combat tax evasion – Fund rep
Tax initiatives proposed by the Ukrainian government and supported by the International Monetary Fund under the new Extended Fund Facility (EFF) are not aimed at small businesses but at ensuring greater fairness in the country’s tax system and combating tax evasion, IMF Resident Representative in Ukraine Priscilla Toffano said. Today the simplified taxation system has become an extremely unfair system that is used to avoid taxation, she said during the Dialogs with NV event dedicated to European integration held this week in Kyiv, according to an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent.
Toffano noted that legal, or fully compliant, businesses fairly complain about why Ukraine continues to raise tax rates for the few who already pay taxes. These include increases in the military levy, the corporate tax on banks, and higher excise duties.
Perhaps now is the time to try taxing consumption that previously was not taxed. Therefore the IMF agreed to try to expand the circle of people contributing to the country’s war effort to expand the circle of people who must pay VAT and to restore the VAT payment chain, the IMF representative explained regarding the logic behind the key benchmarks of the new program. According to the IMF Resident Representative in Ukraine, this is precisely the reasoning behind the proposal to abolish VAT exemptions for all parcels arriving from abroad.
What is the point for a country at war to grant VAT benefits to foreign manufacturers rather than domestic ones, Toffano emphasized.
Regarding the proposal to cancel VAT exemptions for all taxpayers with annual turnover exceeding UAH 4 million, including those operating under the simplified regime, she noted that this corresponds to about EUR 85,000 and reflects requirements of the European Union, which Ukraine seeks to join.
It is better to broaden the tax base so that everyone contributes, that is why the IMF proposes eliminating these exemptions, she said.
According to the statistics she cited, consumption per capita in Ukraine is growing faster than GDP. While GDP at the end of 2025 remained 1% below the 2021 level, consumption had already exceeded it by 6%.
Toffano also presented data showing that Ukraine has 0.5 registered VAT payers per 100 people, while the average in the EU is 7.7. The lowest levels in the EU are in Romania – about 3 – and in Slovakia, Latvia, and Lithuania – about 4.
In absolute terms, Ukraine has around 240,000 VAT payers, while Poland has about 2.4 million, roughly ten times more. The problem is that in Ukraine many people use the simplified taxation regime to minimize their tax liabilities and avoid VAT, the IMF representative said.
She recalled that the simplified tax regime was introduced in the late 1990s as a way to support small businesses until they transitioned to the general taxation regime.
Today it has become an extremely unfair system used not only by small businesses but also by large businesses through tricks such as underreporting turnover, splitting companies to remain below certain thresholds to avoid taxation, Toffano stressed.
According to her, the IMF supports such changes because they level the playing field and reduce incentives for illegal transportation of goods across customs, since many goods currently circulate in Ukraine without VAT.
Everyone in Ukraine says customs is one of the places with the highest corruption risks. In the IMF view, by eliminating VAT exemptions for taxpayers, including those under the simplified regime, you indirectly promote integrity at customs because you remove the market for illegally imported smuggled goods, she said. She also cited data on the distribution of companies by revenue in Ukraine, according to which a significant share is concentrated just below VAT registration thresholds, of which there are currently two in Ukraine – UAH 1 million and about UAH 10 million.
Many firms sit just below these thresholds, they do not want to cross them, Toffano said, adding that this creates an artificial barrier to company growth. She also recalled that one completed measure under the program was eliminating the advantage that non-VAT payers previously had over VAT payers in public procurement.
In Ukrainian
March 16, 2026
