KIEV, December 20. /TASS/. Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has urged to finally pass the 2016 draft budget, which was severely criticized by the parliament.
"We must urgently adopt the budget for the next year," he said on Sunday.
Apart from that, he said, the parliament is to adopt amendment to the country’s Tax Code that had also been subject to severe criticism.
Ukraine’s state budget for 2016 is based on a new draft Tax Code, as recommended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Both documents were presented at the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) on Thursday, December 17 and both came under criticism from nearly all parliamentary factions despite the fact that the tax reform was called compromise-based as it took into account recommendations from the parliament’s tax and customs policy committee led by Nina Yuzhanina of the pro-presidential Pyotr Poroshenko Bloc faction.
Rada lawmakers voiced criticism against cancellation of a special taxation regime for farmers, which was provided by the tax reform. The Samopomoshch (Self-assistance) party called the new Tax Code as ‘theatre of absurdity’ and ‘bare facts.’ Batkivshchina (Fatherland party) said the Code provided for "no steps to take Ukraine’s economy out of shadow." As a result, Verkhovna Rada spokesman Vladimir Groisman suggested the new Tax Code be referred back to the committee. As concerns the draft budget, he said it was geared towards centralization.
After a series of failed presentations of the budget and the Tax Code, the International Monetary Fund urged Ukraine to pass the budget in conformity with its recommendation otherwise it warned it would suspend the program of international financial assistance.