Ukrainian religious organizations urge deputies to correct Tax Code

The Ukrainian Council of Churches and religious organizations calls on the Parliament to support bill №5050, which fixes a number of inaccuracies in the Tax Code with respect to non-profit status of religious organizations, reports the Institute for Religious Freedom.

On September 20, UCCRO chairman Valeriy Antoniuk filed relevant requests to the Verkhovna Rada committees and parliamentary factions,

These appeals reflect the problems faced by religious communities of all denominations, which was the subject of discussion at a meeting of the Secretariat of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches on 14 September.

In their appeals the Council of Churches calls attention to the threatening situation, related to incorrect requirements of subparagraph 133.4.1 of the Tax Code of Ukraine for religious organizations, which could be interpreted tax inspectors as a prohibition of any charity and mercy in favor of members of a religious organization. Another problem is the necessity for re-registration of statutes of all religious organizations (about 35,000) until the end of 2016 as a condition of maintaining their non-profit status.

"Bill №5050, developed with the participation of parliamentary and public experts, members of the Committee and the Council of Churches, fixes the inaccuracies of the Tax Code, given the specificities of religious organizations (a possibility to carry out charity and mercy in favor of co-religionists) and largely solves the problem of their universal re-registration," notes the UCCRO.

In the explanatory note to bill №5050 the authors of the legislative initiative point out that the "relevant public authorities are physically unable to carry out the re-registration of changes in the statutes (regulations) of religious organizations in certain period of time", that is until January 1, 2017. In their opinion, "the current situation threatens to paralyze the entire charitable activities of religious organizations", which the proposed amendments should prevent.

In addition, the Council of Churches proposed the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine to postpone for one year the date changes to the statutes of non-profit organizations established by paragraphs 34 and 35 of subsection 4 of section XX "Transitional Provisions" of the Tax Code of Ukraine.