“Good intentions pave to …
This is a perfectly logical idea, if it is balanced and does not lead to the shadowing of white business, of course. Unfortunately, we often make decisions in a less-than-balanced manner. For example, we can raise taxes as much as we want, but without closing down shadow schemes. What is the reason behind this? This creates a more competitive environment and margins for shadow business in our realities. It gets a second wind. For white businesses, it doesn't matter how much taxes they pay - the main thing is that it is equal for everyone. It's just like in sports - if everyone is going to play football, then everyone plays according to the same rules, even if they are strict and not always fair. Then, the strongest athlete (team) wins, not the manipulator who plays rugby and just buys the referee in the process. This is the picture. If shadow flows are not closed, I think a tax increase will not create an increase in fees, but simply a flow of white money into black. We have seen this many times in our history. This is the first thing...
The second is that I have mentioned many times, including in my recent post, that there are many places where banal theft of public funds occurs through the management of state-owned enterprises. Does it make sense to start filling the budget with them? I want to give a couple of examples of where the money is lying and where it just needs to be raised:
1. I wrote about the Odesa Port Plant (OPP) abuses, including the shadow pricing schemes. After my post, the OPP received requests from some ‘competent’ services and several MPs demanding to see all transshipment contracts, including the contractors and transshipment rates, and a report on the amounts paid to the budget. The purpose of these requests was to compare the prices of their services with real market prices, which with a 99% probability would have revealed a scheme where their services were several times lower than market prices, and the difference was paid in cash and the corresponding budget revenues. To date, no response to these requests has been received from the management of the OPP. That's it. As they say, they have a serious back behind them.
2. Access to USPA berths. The cost of this service was reduced (read: someone lobbied) for some reason to 56 cents per ton of transshipment about 10 years ago. I wrote about this, too, and I can repeat it - no one will invest in the construction of berths at this price. There is only one incentive here - to invest in the manager of these berths, which many so-called operators are doing valiantly. These rates could and should be raised 5-10 times. This also means hundreds of millions or even billions of hryvnias to the budget.
3. The various dredging works carried out by the USPA in various ports of the great Odesa area specifically for specific port operators should be paid for by these port operators in full - 100% of the port/canal dues rate, not 50/50 or other proportions to various special accounts, etc. The USPA (the state) paid for and created the deep water area, so it must collect the full fees. Without any ‘buts’. It's just logical. And this is also hundreds of millions of hryvnias.
4. I could list ‘excellent’ management in various industries, but I think someone is there to write about this topic too...
So, before raising taxes, perhaps it would make sense to put things in order in the existing economy first. To collect what is on the surface and is obvious to the eye... Otherwise, it looks like this - we (the authorities) want to ‘flog’ the white business on the one hand, but on the other - we will not limit ourselves in anything, because we, who write and implement the laws, also need to live off something...’