Ukraine budget revenues surge 86% on confiscated Yanukovych funds

Ukraine’s general budget revenues surged 85.7% yoy in April vs. 8.9% yoy growth in March, according to the State Treasury on May 26. The UAH 29.7 bln confiscated from ex-president Viktor Yanukovych and UAH 10 bln dividends from the NBU were responsible for most of the growth in April. The rest came from personal income tax (+29.1% yoy), excise duties (+22.3% yoy) and VAT (+12.3% yoy). Rent on mineral extraction fell 46.9% yoy and enterprise profit tax collections dropped 15.1% yoy.  From a revenues net of confiscated funds and the NBU dividends persepctive, budget collects increased 14.5% yoy through the month.

The proceeds from the confiscated assets brought the general budget to an impressive surplus. By the end of April, the general budget balance was in the black by UAH 38.6 bln (1.6% of GDP), with half of the surplus belonging to the central budget (UAH 19.4 bln) and the other half (UAH 19.2 bln) to local budgets.

Alexander Paraschiy: The official target for confiscated funds from corruption was UAH 11.6 bln for the year. The actual sum wired to the coffers was 2.6x larger than planned.  It’s still not clear whether the confiscated UAH 29.7 bln was in cash or in securities (as some media reported), but whatever liquidity of the funds, they substantially improved fiscal accounts. The year’s target for the general budget assumes 16.4% yoy revenue growth, while for 4M17 we have +47.8% yoy. Growth rates will ease through the course of the year since no extra large-scale confiscations are expected. However, collections are seen as meeting officially targeted levels easily. The outlined 3.0% of GDP budget deficit limit for 2017 looks safe.