Fiscal Decentralization Task Force at Ministry of Finance conducted second meeting on local taxes

Today, on October 28, the second meeting of the Fiscal Decentralization Task Force on the improvement of local tax policy took place.
The core task of Fiscal Decentralization Task Force which was created in September is to coordinate the technical aid from donors who are jointly with the government and local government bodies developing local self-government and strengthening the system of interbudgetary relations. The Task Force poses a platform where priorities and strategic tasks in fiscal decentralization are to be agreed and technical projects for their implementation shall be elaborated and supported.

The main objective of today’s meeting was to identify priority tasks related to local tax policy, to set up a logical framework, performance indicators and a sequence of joint actions to solve existing problems and to fill gaps in this field as well as to divide responsibilities between the Task Force members. 

The participants of the meeting agreed that the main objective for further changes in the local tax system is to secure revenues for the local self-government which would enable it to implement local policy in line with the powers delegated to the local self-government applying effective and realistic tax solutions.

During the meeting it was decided that strategic vision for the coming evolution of local revenues and the role of local taxes is needed to reach the above objective. It is also necessary to improve revenue management for the property tax and land tax, to raise awareness among the local governments and public more intensively and to improve budget transparency and reporting at the level of municipalities. 

On the basis of the agreed logframe, concrete steps for the implementation of the above objectives will be identified including technical aid projects of international donors who are participants of the Task Force. 

Among active participants of the meeting were representatives of the key departments of the Ministry of Finance as well as Ministry for regional development, construction and municipal affairs and the Association of Ukrainian Cities. 

Representatives of international organizations attended the meeting as well, among them: Delegation of the European Commission, German society for international cooperation (GIZ), Swedish agency for international cooperation and development (Sida), Department for international development, PwC (DFID/PwC) and Swiss Agency for development and cooperation (SDC), Solidarity Fund of Poland, UN development program and PwC as a contractor implementing the program of the UK Ministry for international cooperation (PwC/DFID).