Ex. No. 15/07-20 dated 07/09/2020
To the people
To the deputies of Ukraine!
REFERENCE
GS “Assembly of Agrarian Chambers of Ukraine”, acting on the basis of its own authority, as well as on behalf and in the interests of 6.9 million owners of land shares (shares) from all regions of Ukraine, addresses you with this letter, declaring the following:
Agrarians of Ukraine, like every ordinary Ukrainian, are pleased and impressed by the success in building their own state and developing its economy.
The positive experience of the successful activity of the Verkhovna Rada, which demonstrates the establishment of a balanced state policy in all spheres, gives us the conviction that in the near future we will be able to experience a lot of mutual benefit in the development of the introduction of new market instruments in Ukraine.
At the same time, we consider it expedient to bring you information in connection with the preparation and adoption of Law of Ukraine No. 3131 “On Amending the Tax Code of Ukraine and other laws of Ukraine regarding the detinization of agricultural production”, which will lead to the complete destruction of private peasant farms, the complete impoverishment of the rural and urban population, and the complete decline of rural areas, after your vote irreversible processes in the destruction of the laid foundations of the development of Ukraine.
Despite the supposedly “noble” goal – the detinization of agricultural production, in fact, the adoption of this Law will create the greatest tax pressure on peasants – private owners of agricultural land, most of whom are pensioners with a minimum pension of less than two thousand hryvnias. Having land, they are forced to work hard on it in their old age in order to somehow survive.
When growing a vegetable garden for their own needs, the peasants will have an annual obligation to pay a tax on conditionally received income (this applies to all owners of agricultural land without exception). Even if the peasant does not grow anything on the plot of land, or grows only what he consumes without selling the products, he will still have to pay. And there is a lot to pay: according to the formula given in the draft Law No. 3131, this amount will be from UAH 1,200 to UAH 1,500. for 1 ha. despite the fact that the pension is 1,500-2,000 UAH. That is, a pensioner must live without means of subsistence for one month.
However, paying this tax is not so easy. Draft Law No. 3131 obliges all land owners to annually submit Annual tax declaration and an appendix with the calculation of the total tax liability. That is, every land owner under this Law will have the obligation to fill out and submit to the tax authority a number of documents and the information below:
“In the appendix with the calculation of the total tax liability, in particular, it is indicated:
normative monetary valuation of land plots and their area;
the amount of the total tax liability, calculated in accordance with subsection 170.14.3 of clause 170.14 of article 170 of the Code, and its decoding for each land plot;
the amount paid by such an entity for the tax (reporting) year of taxes and other payments related to the production and sale of its own agricultural products and/or the lease of land plots specified in subsection 14.1.1831, clause 14.1 of Article 14 of the Code;
the difference between the amount of the total tax liability and the amount of paid taxes and other payments related to the production and sale of own agricultural products and/or the lease of such land plots, calculated in accordance with this point;
cadastral numbers of land plots specified in subparagraph 14.1.1831 of item 14.1 of article 14 of the Code, in respect of which the tax liability is determined.”
For the majority of pensioners of respectable age, which are mostly owners of land shares, this is an overwhelming task. Also, non-payment of this imposed tax liability will lead to financial sanctions, which will ultimately result in the loss of the land plot, which will be forcibly expropriated through the mechanism of tax debt collection in order to pay this debt. The initiators of this Law came up with an ideal mechanism for depriving peasants of land!
The introduction of the PPZ will lead to a significant increase in the tax burden on private land owners, individual peasants, small farms, and other small economic entities, which for completely objective reasons do not have the same opportunities to reduce the tax liability from the PPZ at the expense of other taxes and fees as medium and large agricultural producers, for whom the level of fiscal burden will not change with the introduction of the PPZ, or will change insignificantly.
Therefore, the direct dependence of the tax burden on peasants – private landowners, personal peasant farms, and small farms – is monitored. The larger the enterprise, the lower the tax burden.
Increasing tax pressure on private landowners, small producers will create conditions for their sale or lease of land plots. That is, this Law is a very effective mechanism for depriving peasants of their land (which is especially relevant for the opening of the agricultural land market on July 1, 2021).
This, in turn, will lead to increasing unemployment in rural areas, the outflow of labor force abroad, and, as a result, the complete destruction of the countryside, reducing competition and monopolization of agricultural production, changing the structure of agricultural production, the commodity structure of export-import, increasing the price offer on the domestic agri-food market, etc.
The adoption of this Law will not lead to the overcoming of “detinization”, but to the creation of conditions for the unimpeded purchase of peasant lands by large agricultural holdings and land tycoons.
The Assembly of Agrarian Chambers of Ukraine considers the adoption of Law No. 3131 in the proposed version inadmissible and asks you to withdraw this Law from consideration in order to stabilize the social situation.
Sincerely, Chairman of the Assembly of Agrarian Chambers of Ukraine
Ihor Vuytsyk