The National Restaurant Association of Ukraine has asked the Kyiv Defense Council to consider extending the opening hours of catering establishments, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko has said.
The mayor posted the relevant document on his Telegram channel.
“We understand that business must work, the economy must receive taxes, and people must have jobs. The city authorities will consider this issue carefully. A meeting will be held with entrepreneurs to discuss all aspects. And after that, the issue will be considered by the Kyiv Defense Council,” said Klitschko.
Entrepreneurs emphasize that extending the work of catering establishments by one hour – until 23:00 – will help improve the economic situation in the city, create additional jobs, and increase revenues from taxes, fees, and payments to budgets of all levels.
Previously, all catering establishments were open only until 22:00, as the curfew started at 23:00. Since March 2023, the curfew in Kyiv has started at 00:00.
Since the second day of the war, the restaurants that are members of the Association have set up 21 kitchens in Kyiv and provide free meals to 178 organizations every day: units of the Armed Forces, hospitals, orphanages and nursing homes, police, territorial defense, people in bomb shelters and many people in need.
A request to extend the work of catering establishments was signed by 80 restaurateurs and chain owners.
It is worth noting that Klitschko promised to consider this issue in the near future.
The Ukrainian Restaurant Association welcomes bill No. 5590 on amendments to the Tax Code to reduce the value added tax rate for the restaurant industry and catering services from 20% to 7%.
According to the association, about 63% of the restaurateurs surveyed by it expect business development due to the VAT reduction, and 19% of respondents intend to reorganize into an LLC if such an amendment to the code is adopted.
“Catering establishments often use the individual entrepreneur system for selling food and the LLC system for selling alcohol. This creates a number of difficulties for the restaurateurs themselves – the impossibility of maintaining civilized transparent relations with banks in terms of obtaining loans, limiting cashless payments with retail chains, the complexity of administering the tax payment process,” President of the Ukrainian Restaurant Association Serhiy Trakhachev said.
“Today there is a huge demand from the industry itself for the transition to a civilized and transparent form of existence. But this request is limited by a significant tax burden, in particular the need to pay VAT at the standard level of 20%,” he said.
So, the adoption of the amendments will allow increasing working capital in the restaurant sector and save jobs. According to the association, due to the coronavirus pandemic and quarantine restrictions, the volume of the restaurant market in Ukraine in 2020 decreased by a third and amounted to UAH 14.1 billion, almost all market players reduced their revenue.
