On March 23, a large-scale conference “Ukrainian tax reform and anti-corruption summit” was held in Kyiv

Yesterday, the Institute of Economic Leadership, with the support of Atlas Network, started an important discussion between representatives of the government, business, public sector and international experts on the long-overdue issue of reforming the tax system for the sake of Ukraine’s economic growth.

According to the results of the summit, we can state with restrained optimism that a consensus is crystallizing in Ukraine at the level of the state and business — we need a new social contract on the issue of taxation.

In particular, representatives of specialized business organizations and the state sector, as well as the best global experts with experience in implementing tax reforms, agreed that:

• The more complex the tax system, the greater the scope for corruption. As the speaker of the event, American economist Tom G. Palmer, emphasized, complexity is the friend of corruption. That is why the tax reform should establish the same and clear rules for everyone. The new tax system should be neutral, universal and predictable.
• In addition to reducing the tax burden, it is also necessary to simplify the tax payment system and remove the human factor from it — the interaction between tax officials and taxpayers should be minimal.
• Implementation of an effective tax system is impossible without deregulation of the economy and establishment of the rule of law. No tax changes will increase Ukraine’s investment attractiveness if “manual” management remains in the field of law and if our state continues to be the least economically free in Europe.

We thank all the participants and co-organizers of the event and hope that the ideas discussed at the summit will become the basis for future tax changes. We express special gratitude to the international experts of the event who shared their knowledge and experience on tax reforms: Krassen Stanchev, Remigijus Šimašius, Joe Bishop-Henchman, Yaroslav Romanchuk, Arthur Laffer, Tom Sargent, Anna Bjerde, Scott Hodge, Stephen Brien.