Shadow trade of products takes away 50 billion UAH from Ukraine's budget.

Ukraine's budget loses 50 billion UAH from shadow retail

Each year, Ukraine's budget loses 50 billion UAH from shadow product retail, reported Ruslan Dubas, deputy head of the retail committee of EBA and director of the legal department of 'Auchan Ukraine', during the forum 'Detinization and Fair Competition'.

The shadow economy has a direct impact on the budget. It is estimated that the budget loses at least 50 billion UAH in product retail every year. Of this amount, about 10 billion UAH pertains to the shadow alcoholic business, where no taxes are paid. Regarding food products, there is no statistics, but it is claimed that one third to half of dairy products are of poor quality or counterfeit, which also leads to losses. Such problems exist in the meat, bakery, and other sectors, Dubas added.

Problems also arise with illegal or 'grey' import of food products, where experts estimate the unpaid customs duties to be around 15-20 billion UAH.

Given these facts, the loss amount is very large. I remind you that the last tax increase was justified by the need to attract an additional 150 billion UAH to the budget to cover expenses for the war and other needs. Thus, if the food industry is brought out of the shadow, it could satisfy one third of these needs, Dubas believes.