Vindkraft Ukraine, operating in the field of wind energy in Ukraine, has estimated its possible annual losses from the introduction of excise tax on “green” electricity at EUR3 million.
“Our losses from excise tax will amount to EUR3 million per year,” founder and CEO of the company Carl Sturen said in a comment to Energy Reform on the sidelines of a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine agency on the development of renewable energy sources on June 9.
At the same time, he noted that with the introduction of the excise tax, it will be necessary to negotiate again with banks financing the company’s projects on restructuring loans.
“If a decision on excise tax is made now, it will be necessary to recalculate it again, to renegotiate that we cannot fulfill the payment schedules. This is an ongoing process,” Sturen complained.
According to him, both in the past and in the current year, the company’s management is continuously engaged in restructuring loans.
“We are constantly doing this. First, we signed a memorandum – we built our schedules with the banks according to the memorandum, taking into account that it will be fulfilled. Then the memorandum is not fulfilled – it was necessary to negotiate in a new way. Now the excise tax is impending – negotiations again,” the head of Vindkraft Ukraine described the situation.
At the same time, he stressed that in such conditions it is impossible to build anything, specifying that “the company planned to build a wind farm with a capacity of 200 MW in Kherson region this year, but it is already obvious that it will not have time to do this.”
According to Sturen, it is now difficult to negotiate financing for new projects.
“Nobody is funding, they are waiting for the law and the memorandum to be fulfilled. Everything is in limbo,” he explained the state of affairs.
Nevertheless, the CEO of the company believes that the signing of the memorandum was the right decision.
“All the same, this memorandum was correct. I see the government’s attempts to fulfill it, but, unfortunately, the situation is complicated, rather, by the manipulation of those bodies that are not directly subordinate to the government. This, in particular, is the regulator,” Sturen said.
He substantiated his position by the fact that participants in the electricity market, allowing manipulations on it, remain unpunished, and this is within the competence of the energy regulator – the NEURC.
“If the market players undermine it with fake volumes and bids for consumption and sale, if there is no punishment for this, manipulations, in my understanding, are in full swing. And “green” generation suffers and artificial losses are created for Energoatom,” he said.
In his opinion, “green” generation, requiring payments and balancing, creates only 5% of problems in the market, and 95% arise from manipulations on it.
The government has proposed that the Verkhovna Rada approves methods for calculating minimum tax applicability for land plots under cultivation being in so-called “domestic offshore,” for which taxes are not paid.
The formula for calculating the size of the tax is included in the so-called resource bill No. 5600 with amendments to the Tax Code on ensuring balanced budget receipts. The document was registered in parliament.
The document proposes to supplement Article 381 of the Tax Code with a formula according to which minimum tax applicability depends on the general standard pecuniary value of the land plot and the period during which the land plot was owned by the business entity.
The formula looks like this:
MTA = SPV × A × F × M / 12
Where:
MTA – minimum tax applicability;
SPV – standard pecuniary value of 1 hectare of a land plot;
A is the area of the land plot in hectares;
M is the number of calendar months during which the land plot was owned, leased or used on other terms by the taxpayer;
F – factor equal to 0.05.
According to the document, for a land plot that has not been evaluated it will be assessed as 1 hectare of arable land in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea or in the region, taking into account the indexation factor determined by the Code in the prescribed manner.
For sole proprietors, fourth group payers under the simplified tax system, the factor will be 0.025.
According to the bill, the minimum tax applicability is determined for allotments (allotments for construction); allotment cooperatives (societies) for vegetable growing and gardening; reserve lands; unclaimed plots at the disposal of local governments; sites exposed to radioactive contamination after the Chornobyl disaster in the exclusion zones.
“If an individual owns or uses one or more land plots, the total size of which does not exceed the size specified in Subparagraph 24 of Paragraph 1 of Article 165 of this Code, the minimum tax applicability for these land plots is not determined,” the authors of the bill said in the promulgated document.
When transferring to lease and sublease, inheritance or other use of land, the minimum tax applicability is determined for tenants and users in the manner prescribed in the Tax Code.
Exemption of bioenergy projects on solid fuels from the payment of tax on carbon dioxide emissions will increase the interest of investors in these projects and the volume of investments in them, the deputy chairman of the State Agency on Energy Efficiency and Energy Saving of Ukraine, Yuriy Shafarenko, has said.
“This will open up new opportunities for investment. Solar and wind plants are, of course, good, but Ukraine is an agricultural country, and bioenergy projects are very important. Development of bioenergy should be perceived as one of the most promising areas of renewable energy,” he said in an interview with the online portal Energy Reform.
He clarified that the relevant bill has already been agreed with the ministries of energy, digitalization, economy, as well as with the Ministry of Finance.
“The most important thing was to agree on the bill with the Ministry of Finance, because this Ministry is the least interested in it. But realizing the importance and correctness of this document, the Ministry of Finance agreed on it,” Shafarenko said, adding that exemption of bioenergy from the carbon tax is an international practice.
The agency plans to send the bill to the Ministry of Justice in the near future and after the conclusion is made by the agency – for consideration by the Cabinet of Ministers, the expert said.
At the same time, Shafarenko highly appreciates the chances of this bill being approved by the Verkhovna Rada.
“I think the prospect of its adoption is very high. It does not have such opponents to be very against it,” he predicts.
At the same time, according to him, the exemption of bioenergy from paying the CO2 tax is extremely important, given the prospects for its significant increase.
“When this tax was 41 kopecks per tonne of CO2, it was an insignificant burden. Then the tax was raised to UAH 10 – already more, but it was still possible to put up, and this did not really restrain investors in the industry. But they want to increase it to UAH 30-60, and this will have a tangible effect on the development of bioenergy,” Shafarenko said.
Metinvest Group, taking into account associated companies and joint ventures, is expected to increase the payment of income tax by more than seven times in January-June 2021, year-over-year, to UAH 10.2 billion, a source in the tax authorities told Interfax-Ukraine.
In turn, Metinvest confirmed to the agency information about a significant increase in income tax payments in the first half of 2021.
“Enterprises of the Metinvest group will pay income tax in the first half of 2021, replenishing the national budget by UAH 10.2 billion (compared to the first half of 2020, the income tax paid was about UAH 1.4 billion). Thus, according to the results of the first half of the year, income tax payments increased by 7.4 times. This unprecedented increase in tax payments during coronavirus pandemic will help support the cities where Metinvest enterprises operate, pay salaries in full and on time communal and medical workers,” the company told the agency.
At the same time, the group said that Metinvest is one of the largest taxpayers in Ukraine. Thus, in 2020, the company increased its tax payments by 5%, to UAH 22.1 billion year-over-year. Earlier, the group said that over 15 years of its work, it transferred UAH 165 billion to the budgets of all levels.
PwC Ukraine developed a free guide – Expats’ Handbook to help foreigners coming to Ukraine for personal or business goals.
It aims to give a general overview of the key rules and issues that foreigners need to know about the Ukrainian tax and legal environment to allow them to become comfortable and to avoid being overburdened with formalities.
The Handbook is available in many languages, including English, Polish, German, French and Chinese.
“Our country is building a business-friendly climate and opening new opportunities for investors from across the globe. We still have some way to go on this journey – the Ukrainian legal landscape is a work in progress, undergoing changes which will bring it in line with international good practices. But as long as you have a trusted guide to steer you safely through burdensome taxation or immigration compliance issues, you are safe” – commented Slava Vlasov, Partner, Leader, Tax and Legal Services, PwC Ukraine.
Tedis Ukraine company increased tax payments to the budgets of all levels by 5% in 2020, year-over-year, to UAH 1.4 billion.
The company’s press service told Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday, UAH 612 million of deductions went to the central budget, while UAH 809 million to local budgets.
“During its ten-year history, our company has consistently been one of the largest taxpayers in Ukraine, and since its inception, Tedis Ukraine has transferred over UAH 10 billion to the country’s budget,” Director General of the company Taras Korniyachenko said.
According to Tedis Ukraine, in 2020, the company paid UAH 705 million of retail excise tax on the sale of tobacco products to local budgets, which allowed it to become the largest taxpayer in Ukraine.
As reported, Tedis Ukraine in February was the first to achieve in the Supreme Court the satisfaction of the cassation appeal against the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) and the invalidation of a fine of UAH 3.4 billion. The Supreme Court said it sustained the cassation due to the impossibility of bringing any person to justice on the basis of decisions of the AMCU in other cases (having no prejudicial significance), without obligatory proof of guilt in each individual case and taking into account the erroneous legal qualification of actions of Tedis Ukraine LLC.
Tedis Ukraine is one of the largest Ukrainian distribution companies. The company employs about 2,300 employees. The regional network consists of 32 structural divisions throughout the country. The company covers a retail network of about 45,000 retail points throughout Ukraine.
