Parliament exempts charitable activities of religious organizations from taxation

Parliament adopted a bill that clarifies the status of non-profit religious organizations. 281 MPs voted in favor of this decision.

The bill supplemented the definition of non-profit organization in the Tax Code, according to which religious organizations are now considered non-profit if engaged in non-profit activities (including implementation of humanitarian aid, charity, philanthropy, charity, etc.).

Until recently, only those organizations that redistributed funds for own maintenance were considered nonprofit.

The law also adjourned for one year the repeated registration of churches with the fiscal authorities, as previously they had to do it till the end of the year. According to chairman of the committee Nina Yuzhanina such re-registration must be agreed with the local authorities, so it takes lots of time and before January 1 it is impossible to do it.

She added that otherwise, after January 1, the fiscal services could impose taxes on church for charity.

According to the authors of the law, Unguryan, Prodan, Kirsch, Kozak, Lohvynskyy, the adoption of the proposed amendments will facilitate the implementation by religious and other non-profit organizations of socially important activities, including social and charitable activities, including providing the necessary assistance to military personnel, temporarily displaced persons and other categories of citizens in need of proper care.

In addition, the adoption of the law will allow avoiding the need for re-registration of 34611 religious organizations, which cannot be effected until the date determined by the Tax Code. This will help avoid the negative effects and alleviate the risk of revocation of the non-profit status for over 34 thousand religious organizations.