The IT Ukraine Association appealed to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU). According to the community, the new currency rules create an "extra tax" on the income of the IT professionals — approximately 26%. This is reported by SPEKA.
The association added that a significant part of the specialists work as sole proprietors. When getting foreign currency, exporting companies are now forced to sell it at an artificially reduced rate, which does not allow them to pay remuneration to the sole proprietors in the equivalent of the market rate.
In turn, IT sole proprietors are able to sell currency only at the NBU rate, while they are forced to buy currency or pay with hryvnia cards abroad at the market rate. According to representatives of the Association, in fact, a direct expropriation of part of the profits of IT specialists is actually taking place (in the form of exchange rate differences).
This may have the following consequences:
- the outflow of foreign exchange income of sole proprietors from Ukraine and the accumulation of such income outside the country;
- the change of the tax residence by IT entrepreneurs, which is fraught with a sharp drop in foreign exchange earnings to Ukraine from IT exports as early as next month;
- transfer of IT specialists who are abroad or can go there from Ukrainian companies to foreign ones.
IT Ukraine proposes to the NBU Board to adopt the exchange rate regime, which will take into account the interests of export industries and will provide a quick return to a floating rate, as well as allow selling part of the foreign exchange earnings to exporters at a commercial rate with a gradual increase of this share.
It is equally important to retain the possibility to pay with credit/deposit cards and withdraw cash abroad at the official NBU rate (+10%) within the equivalent of 50,000 UAH/month, as well as to allow banks to apply the commercial rate only in excess of this amount, but already without amount restrictions.
The Association adds that in the first quarter of 2022, the IT industry brought $2 billion in revenues to the country's economy, and sector companies directed more than 1 billion UAH for humanitarian purposes.
Context. On May 20, the NBU issued Decree No. 102, allowing banks to sell foreign currency at the cash offices and charge funds from hryvnia cards at the market rate.
At the same time, according to the NBU Resolution No. 18 dated February 24, 2022, non-cash currency can only be sold at the fixed NBU exchange rate, which today differs significantly from the market one.
Thus, everyone who gets currency on cards is forced to sell it at the official rate, and buy at the market rate.
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