The Verkhovna Rada did not have enough votes to take away the military personal income tax from the communities

The Verkhovna Rada failed to vote in the second reading on the draft law, which proposed to take away from local communities income from personal income tax (PIT), which is paid by military personnel.

This is reported by «NikVesti».

The corresponding vote took place at the Verkhovna Rada meeting on Tuesday, October 17. 223 deputies cast their votes for the draft law «On Amendments to Section VI of the Budget Code of Ukraine on Ensuring the Support of the State's Defense Capability and the Development of the Defense-Industrial Complex of Ukraine».

9 people's deputies voted against, 52 abstained.

Six out of eight People's Deputies from «Servants of the People», who represent the interests of the Mykolaiv region in the parliament, supported the draft law: David Arahamiia, Oleksandr Haydu, Maksym Dyrdin, Ihor Nehulevskyy, Ihor Kopytin, Oleksandr Pasichnyy voted in favour. People's deputies Artem Chornomorov and Iryna Kormyshkina were absent during the voting.

As you know, as part of the preparation of the law «On the state budget for 2024», the Cabinet of Ministers plans to direct all revenues from the personal income tax of military personnel, 64% of which currently remain in local budgets, to the state budget. The Association of Cities of Ukraine believes that these funds will most likely be dissolved in the state budget, as well as 36% of the current personal income tax, which is administered by the Ministry of Finance. We are talking about 25.8 billion hryvnias this year and 93.7 billion hryvnias next year, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal clarified the day before. The relevant government bill has already been submitted to the Verkhovna Rada.

The budget of Mykolaiv will thus lose 2.7 billion hryvnias, the mayor of the city Oleksandr Senkevych said.

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine can allocate over 517 million hryvnias to the communities of the Mykolaiv region to compensate for the loss of personal income tax from military income.

On October 6, it was reported that the Budget Committee of the Verkhovna Rada reviewed the decision on the draft law on personal income tax from the military and made amendments : from October 1 to December 31, 2023, the «military» personal income tax is directed to the state budget in the proportion of 50% to 50% . One part of 13 billion hryvnias will go to the State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine for drones, and the second part, also 13 billion hryvnias, will be directed to the Ministry of Defense for the purchase of artillery systems.

People's deputies also commented on the situation with the possible loss of the military personal income tax. In particular, People's Deputy from the «Servant of the People» party Artem Chornomorov criticized the Ministry of Finance and the Budget Committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine over the decision to withdraw the personal income tax paid by the military from the budget of Mykolaiv.

During the session of the Mykolaiv City Council, he stated that he will not support the 2024 state budget unless it is amended to leave the personal income tax paid by military personnel in front-line communities.

People's Deputy of Ukraine Maksym Dyrdin announced that he will not make any amendments to the state budget-2024 for the Mykolaiv region. Unlike his colleague, People's Deputy Oleksandr Pasichnyy said that he is working on amendments to the state budget for 2024 to balance the revenues of the city of Mykolaiv with subsidies after the loss of personal income tax (PIT) paid by the military.

People's Deputy of Ukraine Ihor Nehulevskyy said that he supports the removal of the military personal income tax (PIT) from the budgets of communities, because now the priority is the victory of Ukraine, so all other issues, including the everyday needs of communities, should be put on the back burner.