Volunteers are outraged that they have to pay taxes on money raised for charity and call on the Ministry of Finance to amend Resolution No. 112 with a list of goods and services, the cost of which does not provide for the payment of tax.

TSN.ua has collected everything that is known about the scandal with the taxation of volunteer assistance in Ukraine.

Precedent with volunteer drones and taxes on them

In March 2023, the Dignitas Charitable Foundation launched a UAH 30 million fundraiser for the purchase of 1000 Ukrainian-made FPV drones as part of the Furious Birds project. It should be noted that the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine does not order these drones for the troops.

Thus, the collection of money was carried out on the account of Dignitas and on the "monobank" of Igor Lutsenko, co-founder of the Aerial Reconnaissance Support Center and a serviceman of the 72nd Brigade. As of May, Lutsenko's card received about UAH 20 million, and the military transferred all this money to drones. However, financial monitoring became interested in the collected funds and tax officials stated that the volunteer must pay about UAH 4 million in taxes (18% - personal income tax and 1.5% - military tax).

Why did the tax demand money

"Even volunteers registered in all registers who collect all checks for purchases, have requests and acts from the military, are obliged to pay taxes on volunteer fees if they purchased something with these funds that is not specified in resolution 112 for 2016. You have already guessed that in this resolution there are neither drones, nor anti-drone guns, nor remotes, nor glasses, nor starlinks and dozens of other technological goods," volunteer and president of the Dignitas Fund Luba Shipovich said on the Web.

Volunteer and President of the Dignitas Fund Luba Shipovich / Photo: Lyuba Shipovych's Facebook page

Let us explain everything in more detail. The fact is that at the end of 2022, amendments to Law No. 2747 "On Charitable Activities and Charitable Organizations" came into force. This law exempts from taxes aid collected by volunteers since the beginning of a full-scale war. However, Law No. 2747 is tied to Government Decree No. 112 of 2016. This resolution defines a list of goods and services, the value of which does not provide for the collection of tax, and this list has not changed since 2016. That is, there is no mention of drones or Starlink, instead there are bedspreads for beds and worn clothes. Accordingly, if volunteers buy drones and a number of other means for the army, they must already pay a tax for this.

Volunteers have proposed changes to the Ministry of Finance, but they oppose them

Maria Berlinska, head of the Aerial Reconnaissance Support Center, said online that volunteers suggested to officials from the Cabinet of Ministers – "let's tax everything that volunteers pass on to the military."

"

All that needs to be done is to amend Resolution 112 of the Cabinet of Ministers in one line, something like this: "all property transferred to the military on a volunteer basis is not taxed." And officials went to think. Weeks. A bunch of meetings, departmental, interdepartmental, some more. On our taxes. They thought about it and said – no, pay taxes," Berlinskaya said in a statement.

Head of the Aerial Reconnaissance Support Center Maria Berlinska / Photo: Maria Berlinska's Facebook page

In May, volunteers were supported by Halyna Vasylchenko, a member of the parliamentary committee on finance, tax and customs policy, who sent a parliamentary appeal to the government. The initiative of volunteers was approved by the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Digital Transformation, the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Social Policy. Only the Ministry of Finance was against it.

"The Ministry of Finance believes that the state budget will suffer greatly if taxes are not taken from volunteers. And representatives of the Ministry of Finance decided to joke: "What if the military asks for peignoirs?" – shared the answer from the ministry Shipovich.

After that, at an interdepartmental meeting in the government, the Ministry of Social Policy was instructed to prepare a new draft resolution. However, they soon announced that they did not have time, so the lawyers of the volunteers offered their version. All ministries again agreed, but the Ministry of Finance was again against it.

In order for the new proposed resolution to operate in retrospect, representatives of the Ministry of Justice proposed the wording "the resolution applies from". That is, if the updated list of goods and services is adopted now, then it will be possible to vote for it retroactively – on February 24, 2022.

Now it remains questionable whether the Ministry of Finance will agree to withdraw its objections. Thecomments to the draft will be considered at a government meeting on June 2.

"Mr. Minister of Finance Serhii Marchenko, I really hope that this is just an unfortunate mistake. Otherwise, thousands of volunteers now know whose signature is under the decision to tax volunteers," Berlinska said.

Read also:

  • Kuchma, MPs and officials: a number of famous people were noticed on the Cote d'Azur during the war (video)
  • Rules for deferral and exemption from conscription: the government has made changes
  • Recalculation of pensions, what tariffs will increase when the holidays: what Ukrainians should expect in June

Subscribe to our channels in Telegram and Viber.