Monthly Archive: August 2015

0

EU/US/Russia relationships / Opinion

Ukrainian Prospects within Eastern Partnership and Association Agreement with the EU

Words about benefits for Ukraine from the implementation of the Association Agreement with the EU sound everywhere: in media, Parliament, public transport. However, not all the messages explain the origin of advantages for the country. For this reason let’s have a look on a few facts, which explain why Ukraine may benefit from the convergence with the EU and what obstacles can prevent the country from fulfilling its Eurointegration aspirations.

5

Opinion

Pavlo Sebastianovich: Medium and Small Businesses Displaced From the Legal Field of High Tax Rates

The government is obliged to enter into a social contract with the Ukrainians. If the vast majority of people not agree with the Ministry of Finance tax innovations – the government will has not the moral rights to apply sanctions to those who do not agree with the rules. In this way tax reform fall into the trash can, as well as the reform of the previous government, and the Ukraine will lose a year of its economy growth history.

2

Fiscal Policy / Law / Opinion / Vision for Ukraine

Open Letter to the Expert Community and the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine from the VoxUkraine Group of Economists

The focus on the absolute values of tax rates and level of budget spending unacceptably simplifies the discussion, as it ignores other aspects of the tax reform that are at least as important. Whatever tax revenues a government needs to raise, it should look for tax collection mechanisms that minimally distort prices, production, consumption and distribution of the resources in the economy. This means that taxes should be collected from those commodities and services with inelastic supply and demand, and with low substitution effects (if it is easy to substitute production of a taxed good A to not taxed good B, producers will do so, thereby avoiding paying taxes).

7

Fiscal Policy / Law / Vision for Ukraine

Tax Reform – What’s On the Table

On the 27 August the outline of the tax reform, that has been named one of the priorities by the National Council of Reforms, is expected to be presented. The aim of this article is to analyze what options for the reform are available, what acute problems it is supposed to solve and which reform path is likely to be selected.

4

Opinion

Andrei Kirilenko: There is a 500-Year-Old History of Formal Self-Governance in Ukraine

The formal principles of local self-governance are not new to Ukraine. They have been established centuries ago. Local self-governance can be said to be a “natural way” to govern in Ukraine, albeit interrupted by wars and occupations. The recent drive for decentralization is yet another episode when the power to formally govern themselves is supposed to return to the local communities.

0

Editorial Picks

Index for Monitoring Reforms (iMoRe). Release 16

Index for Monitoring Reforms (iMoRe) from VoxUkraine aims to provide a comprehensive assessment of reform efforts by Ukraine’s authorities. The Index is based on expert assessments of changes in the regulatory environment in five areas. The iMoRe value for the 16th monitoring period (August 3rd –16 th, 2015) constituted +1.5 points out of a possible range from -5.0 to +5.0 points. Authorities’ efforts in fighting corruption, monetary policy, industrial organization and trade policy had a positive impact on the pace of the reforms. Nonetheless, despite the large number of developments, index value decreased slightly compared to the previous period.

 

More

VoxUkraine Twitter

Sheremet.jpg