Not having children? Pay your taxes or hurry up and give birth
21 May 2024 16:05
Olha Bohomolets, MP of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of the VIII convocation, Chief Medical Officer of the Institute of Dermatology and Cosmetology, Honoured Doctor of Ukraine
What do you think of the draft law?
The Verkhovna Rada proposed to introduce taxes on everyone with less than three children. They said it would encourage Ukrainians to have more children. It was a project of a deputy from the ruling party, and it seems that he has already withdrawn it – I hope not for revision?
The very fact that such a thing comes to the minds of the authorities is a bad symptom, and it causes sincere Spanish shame.
I gave birth to four children – and on principle, I never received any state payments for them – NONE. And not because I had enough money – no, I lacked it catastrophically – but because I was ashamed to receive handouts. It was easier to work three jobs (there was no business back then) than to stand with an outstretched hand for a meagre child benefit in the 80s and 90s.
Such taxes do not encourage women to give birth, they are only a way to fill the budget, and nothing more – isn’t that clear?
And the only thing such ideas will encourage citizens to do is to distrust the authorities and continue to run into the shadows.
Entrepreneurs will hide their income to avoid paying the new tax.
Ordinary people who do not have children will flee the country even more actively, and if they give birth, they will do so abroad so that the child can obtain another citizenship..
Is it possible to simply dismiss such ideas in the minds of those in power? The problem of demography has not gone away at all.
I have been sounding the alarm for years: if the situation is not reversed, entire regions of Ukraine will become depopulated in the coming decades.
That is why we need to stimulate the birth rate among those who live in Ukraine – by believing in victory, fighting corruption, growing the economy (even in times of war) and regular home leave for military personnel. And for those who have left, it is the belief that all children born abroad are Ukrainians and that they are expected at home after the victory without being asked “where were you when there was a war”.
Financial incentives, which seem to be the most obvious, do not work: the richest countries are also facing a demographic crisis, and the highest birth rates are precisely where the population lives below the poverty line.
Do you know who gives birth to the most children in Ukraine today and where?
