«You are afraid of giving money to mayors and are concentrating pre-election resources,» — Poroshenko criticized the idea of the Verkhovna Rada to take personal income tax from communities

The leader of «European Solidarity» Petro Poroshenko criticized the Verkhovna Rada's decision to withdraw personal income tax (PIT), which is paid by the military, from local budgets. This will be a blow not only to the communities, but also to the Armed Forces.

He said this during the Verkhovna Rada meeting on Tuesday, October 17.

The politician claims that without these funds, some communities will simply not be able to carry out demining, build bomb shelters and rehabilitate soldiers wounded in battles.

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— With this law, you will deal a double blow — to decentralization, the capacity of communities and the country's defense capability. Yesterday you met with a great friend of Ukraine, the former trade representative of the USA, and now the President's Plenipotentiary for the Kyiv region, saying that you support decentralization. Decentralization was recognized by the United States and the European Union as one of my most successful reforms. And today you are afraid to give money to mayors, trying to concentrate pre-election resources in your hands. The war is not over yet, and I urge you not to support this law, to send it for a second reading again, to form a common law. We will give 30% to production, we will give 30% to the Ministry of Defense, we will give it to the brigades and we will give it to local self-government. And how to carry out humanitarian demining, for what money? And how to ensure the construction of bomb shelters, the functioning of hospitals where rehabilitation of the wounded is carried out at the expense of local self-government funds? How and at what cost should we ensure the reconstruction of housing so that Ukrainians return? Because you say come back, — said Petro Poroshenko.

In particular, the deputy emphasized that the authorities are taking this money for their own needs, instead of ensuring preparation for winter for the local population and the Armed Forces.

— And where does this money go? Centralized in power. And how does she spend them? To the lying propaganda marathon, to the serials that fool our nation. To the wage fund of the ministries. It's not your money. I just returned from the South, from Kherson. And when the brigades now have the opportunity in full, at the expense of subvention funds, to buy spare parts, pickup trucks, mavics, to ensure preparation for the winter, you take all this money. You take 90% from the brigades and leave 10% - that's the math. Unity should be around the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and not around bribery expenditures of the central government, — he added.

We will remind you that today, October 17, the Verkhovna Rada failed to vote in the second reading on the draft law, which proposed to take away from local communities the income from personal income tax (PIT), which is paid by military personnel.

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 specified 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 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 a ratio 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 2024 state budget for the Mykolaiv region. Unlike his colleague, People's Deputy Oleksandr Pasichnyy said that he is working on making amendments to the state budget for 2024 in order to balance the revenues of the city of Mykolaiv with subsidies after the loss of personal income tax (PIT), which is paid by the military.

People's Deputy of Ukraine Ihor Nehulevskyi 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.