Rada votes to delay electronic cash registers amid protests

Ukraine’s parliament
voted on Dec. 1 to delay the introduction of state-issued electronic cash
registers until Jan. 1, 2022 in response to mass protests by thousands of small
and mid-sized individual entrepreneurs. The measure was supported by 319 MPs
representing all five parliamentary factions. Besides the delay, the bill
cancels the cashback incentive for consumers to report register violators,
reduces the list of activities considered to be risky, and ties all limits to
the minimum wage rate. A moratorium on inspections until the end of the
quarantine period will remain in place, said Yaroslav Zhelezniak, the deputy
head of the parliamentary tax committee.

The legislation was
modified by the tax committee after it was submitted by President Zelensky on
Nov. 30. “For more than three weeks, we have observed people outside
parliament. We can agree with them, we can argue, but it’s these people who are
standing at the Verkhovna Rada building in a time when they are also profit. So
for as long as they are here, the majority of their businesses are not working.
And it’s our obligation to vote for changes today that can partly correct the
situation,” said Zhelezniak, an MP with the neoliberal Voice party.

The legislation
didn’t satisfy the thousands of protestors at the parliament building, who
demanded that the electronic cash registers be cancelled altogether. They
remained after the bill was passed and swarmed MPs who exited the building when
session ended, prompting the police to form cordons to allow them to pass.
Protestors were also reported to be blocking traffic in front of the
parliamentary offices.

Zenon Zawada: Yet again, President Zelensky has
demonstrated that when pressed hard enough, he will fold. This incident will
only encourage organized lobbies to hold raucous protests to overturn disliked
measures, despite being needed by the government. That includes these very same
individual entrepreneurs, who will continue to demand delays or the elimination
of cash registers altogether.

The intention of the
electronic cash registers was to bring SMEs into the taxpaying community, in
addition to raising desperately needed budget revenue. Now the government will
have to rely on other sources, including fining overweight trucks on highways,
which have become a favorite cash cow. Yet other creative sources will be
needed, based on the 2021 budget projections.