News (#12 December 2019)

Law digest

President signed law on ratification of US tax treaty

President Volodymyr Zelensky has signed a Draft Law that will enable the US government to prevent tax evasion by US citizens working on the territory of Ukraine.

The law makes provision of information by foreign banks and other financial institutions about their clients, individuals and business entities, to the IRIS (US tax service), mandatory. This means information about account numbers, account turnover and balances.

According to the new law, financial institutions of partner countries will be exempted from enforced tax withholding related to payments from other tax agents, from fulfilling the requirement to withhold tax on transit payments addressed to other financial institutions within the partner country or another partner country.

They will also be exempt from the requirement to close an account whose holder does not meet FATCA requirements, and from enforced tax withholding at a rate of 30% related to payments credited to such account holders.

Information for the US tax authority will be centrally collected by a public body in compliance with Ukrainian legislation and then transferred to the US tax authority.

 

Parliament approved law on gas transmission network separation from Naftogaz

The Ukrainian Parliament has approved the law on unbundling of Naftogaz — separating activities on transportation of natural gas from activities on gas extraction and supply.

Unbundling is one of the key principles for regulating the electricity and oil and gas industries. The legal essence of this principle is that the network/infrastructure owner may engage in activities related to the management of such networks/infrastructure (transportation, storage of resources), but may not simultaneously be a subject of a related market, that is, sell or produce resources. For example, a gas distribution company cannot be engaged in production and/or supply of gas, and an electricity supplier or producer cannot be the owner of electricity grids at the same time.

The law does not stipulate privatization, concession or any other actions with the Ukrainian gas transmission network. It will always remain state-owned.

At the same time, the document establishes the creation of a separate company called the Gas Transmission Network Operator, which cannot be influenced by Naftogaz.

 

National Bank raised tariffs on cash provision to banks

The NBU has adopted Resolution No. 122 amending the tariffs for services (transactions) provided by the National Bank in the electronic payment system and in the field of payments and cash management.

The National Bank revised the tariff on the cash backing of bank cash desks, which amounted to 0.2% of the amount of banknotes and circulating coins provided. From now on it will be differentiated: the tariff of 0.2% will be applied only to securing banks with cash in denominations of UAH 1 to 100.

When receiving banknotes in denominations of UAH 200 to 500, banks will pay the NBU 0.25% of the amount received.

Receiving banknotes in UAH 1,000 bills will cost banks 0.3%.

Due to withdrawal from circulation of 1, 2, 5 and 25 kopek coins, the National Bank removes the tariff for backing bank cash desks with coins in these denominations. By the way, the NBU provided this service for free.

The tariff on provision of banks with banknotes equal to the amount of unsorted banknotes handed over by them will double — from 0.15% to 0.3%.

A new free tariff will be in place for issuing cash (banknotes, circulating and base coins) to the cash desks of banks within the limits of the amounts of withdrawn and suspended banknotes, circulating and base coins handed over by them.

 

Law on protection of intellectual property during customs clearance of goods signed

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has signed the Law No. 202-IX (reg. No. 1230) On the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights when Moving Goods Across the Customs Border .

It is expected that the implementation of the law will strengthen the fight against infringing goods, speed up movement across the customs border of Ukraine and the customs clearance of original goods and contribute to developing international trade and increasing the investment attractiveness of Ukraine.

The law defines the terms “infringing goods”, “pirated goods”, “goods suspected of infringing intellectual property rights”.

 

Ministry of Justice opened up single register of entrepreneurs in full

Ukrainian Justice Minister Denis Malyuska has signed an Order of 6 November 2019, which expands the list of information for disclosure in the form of open data. The Order establishes opening of the United State Register of Legal Entities, Individual Entrepreneurs and Public Organizations (USR) in full.

Thus, part of the information will be updated in the registry on a daily, basis another part — every five days. It is scheduled to upload the full registry in open data format once every week.

From now on, a number of new parameters are available to Ukrainians. In particular: the date and number of the record of state registration of a legal entity; data on legal entities — legal successors; data on separate subdivisions of a legal entity.

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