Content
► President of Ukraine returns to parliament recently adopted laws on introduction of special tax rules for IT industry participants and suggests changes to them

The President did not sign the Law of Ukraine “On Introduction of Changes to Chapter XX ‘Interim Provisions’ of the Tax Code of Ukraine Regarding the Peculiarities of Taxation of Software Industry Participants” (Draft No.9744) and “On State Support for the Development of the Software Industry” (Draft No.8267). Rather, he asked the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to consider his proposals to amend them.

In particular, the proposed changes included the following:

► define the range of participants to which the state extends its support in the IT sphere;
► define the term "software product";
► specify the goods and products that will be VAT exempt;
► exclude the requirement that an IT industry participant obtain an opinion from the State Agency for Science, Innovation and Informatization of Ukraine on the correspondence of its economic activities with those activities that the law defines, in order to verify its right to tax incentives;
► restrain the introduction of additional grounds on which the tax authorities can conduct unscheduled audits of IT industry participants.

In addition, the President says that lowering the personal income tax rate for IT industry employees to 5% contradicts the Constitution of Ukraine and the principles of Ukrainian tax legislation on the equality of taxpayers and on not discriminating against them. The parliament should thus exclude the relevant provision.

For similar reasons, the President also did to support the introduction of a special regime for the calculation and payment of a unified social security contribution for IT industry participants.

We will keep you informed on any further developments.