The regulation on collection of 2% pension duty from currency purchase transactions lost its effect from January 1, 2017, according to the National Bank of Ukraine.

«The article on cancellation of 2% duty already came into force and from January 1, 2017, it is not charged», as noted in regulator’s press office.

As reported, the Verkhovna Rada cancelled this duty with the Law On Introduction of Amendments to the Tax Code on Ensuring Balance of Budget Receipts in 2017, which was adopted on December 20 and published on December 31.

For the first time, the duty on currency transactions was introduced in Ukraine in 1998 as a temporary measure: until 2006, its rate was 1.5%, then, it decreased to 1.3%, in 2007 – to 1%, in 2008 – to 0.5%, and in 2009 – to 0.2%.

In January 2011, the parliament cancelled the pension duty from foreign currency transactions; however, in 2014, it started collecting this duty again at the rate of 0.5%.

Since the beginning of 2015, the rate of pension duty on currency purchase in cash or by bank transfer was raised from 0.5% to 2%, but the list of these taxpayers did not include legal entities, and only currency purchase transactions, conducted in cash, were qualified as the object of collection.

The initiators of collection of this duty indicated that the shadow currency market in Ukraine already exceeded 50%, which creates additional devaluation pressure on hryvnia and complicates the mechanism for functioning of the official currency market in the country. This proposal was approved by the National Bank and international financial organizations.

According to State Treasury’s data, within 11 months of 2016, the receipts from this duty were UAH 326.61 mln with the annual plan of UAH 190.66 mln.