OREANDA-NEWS. December 24, 2014. A package of tax, fiscal and social laws, which the Government plans to submit to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, contains certain steps called to legalize wages and reduce the tax burden on wages. This was announced by PM of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk at the Government meeting.

According to him, the discussions with the Parliament’s members are on regarding the terms of these steps, "We offer to do it throughout three years. In 2015 the rate of a single social tax - 25%, in 2016 - 20%, in 2017 - 15%. We wanted to fix 15% at once, but there is a little problem – we won’t have the funds to pay the pensions."

"We believe the business is getting deshadowed, we reduce the tax rates. And we obtain, respectively, higher incomes as the salaries aren’t paid in envelopes," he stressed.

"The more wages are legalized, the less taxes the state will impose upon such wages," explained Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

Moreover, the PM informed that the Cabinet of Ministers offered to cut the number of taxes from 22 to 9.

He was quoted as saying that the Government commences the second deregulation stage, "At the first stage we have already halved the number of agencies that perform control functions and the number of functions, under which entrepreneurs are inspected. Now, at the second stage we additionally cancel 15 licenses, 3 permissions and 18 regulatory tools".

The Government has also suggested a package of optimization of social benefits, “A basic principle has been adopted: those who need help, who are poor, receive it. And the one who earns dozens thousands of hryvnyas and at this uses a discounted price for gas, electricity, housing and utilities, should not empty the pockets of the poor."