“Will deal a blow to the economy”: Ukraine criticized the tax on low-cost parcels

The Cabinet of Ministers’ initiative to tax international parcels worth up to €150 will deal a blow to Ukraine’s economy and to people’s standard of living.

This opinion was expressed on Facebook by Volodymyr Popereshniuk, co-owner of Nova Poshta.

“Taxing all international parcels worth up to €150 will hurt the economy, affect Ukrainians’ quality of life, and negatively impact the work of our manufacturers and retailers — even though the stated goal of this bill is to protect those same Ukrainian manufacturers and retailers. Taxing parcels will increase Ukrainians’ spending on imported purchases. And this will also affect the domestic market. Put simply: because shopping abroad will become more expensive, our people will have less money left to buy from Ukrainian producers and our retail sector!” Popereshniuk wrote.

He added that there is no reason to expect that once the tax is introduced, everyone will suddenly rush to buy Ukrainian products.

“They [Ukrainians] are already buying from local producers and stores now, if they are satisfied with the price and quality there. But for some reason they still do not limit themselves to that. And that is because on foreign platforms they buy goods that do not exist and cannot exist in Ukraine. No matter how you look at it, Ukraine makes up only 0.2% of the world’s population, and we will never be able to replace the full range of unique and inexpensive goods produced around the world,” the businessman noted.

In addition to introducing a tax on parcels, the government also wants to impose value-added tax on part of the individual entrepreneur sector.