Ukraine up 42 places in this year's World Bank Paying Taxes survey

November 2017

This year's report, Doing Business 2018: Reforming to Create Jobs, shows Ukraine's tax regime to be one of the best improved over the past 12 months, with the country rising 42 places, from 84th to 43rd.

Published annually since 2003, the World Bank Doing Business project provides objective measures of business regulations for local firms in 190 economies worldwide. Russell Bedford International member firms have assisted the World Bank in researching its annual Paying Taxes survey since 2009, contributing data on tax regulation, recent reforms, and the real costs of tax compliance worldwide.

Ukraine's success in this year's Paying Taxes survey is directly attributable to reductions in labour taxes and contributions, now an effective 24.8 percent of profits against 43.1 percent last year - a move which has seen the total tax take reducing from 52.3 percent to 37.8.

More broadly, this year's report shows no change on last year's top-performing countries, with New Zealand, Singapore and Denmark again taking the top three slots. The report's Paying Taxes survey this year shows some remarkable improvements in individual countries' regulatory regimes and again confirming greatest progress among emerging markets, with El Salvador, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Angola and India showing exponential improvements, up 105, 81, 60, 54 and 53 places, respectively. Italy shows the best performance of OECD high income economies, moving from 126 to 112, while the United Kingdom, conversely, shows its worst performance in recent years, down 13 places from 10 to 23.

Dmytro Tkachenko, Partner, Russell Bedford RCG, Kyiv, commented: "The impact of rationalising Ukraine's employee tax regime cannot be overestimated - the country's improved standing in this year's Paying Taxes rankings comes in the face of a three-percent increase in profits tax. While perhaps inevitable in the light of the current challenges facing the country, we will continue working with government and the business community to mitigate the worst impacts of this, and ensure Ukraine remains a competitive place to do business."

To access the full country report click here.