Hetmanstev denied the widespread closure of individual entrepreneurs following the tax increase law.

The official wrote about this on his Telegram page.

According to his data, as of December 1, there were 2 million 76 thousand individual entrepreneurs (IE) operating in Ukraine, of which 272.9 thousand were registered this year. According to Hetmantsev, this number has increased by 83.6 thousand compared to last year.

Furthermore, the official continues, in the last 2 months, the number of newly created IEs has increased by 7 thousand compared to those that ceased operations—47.7 thousand versus 40.7 thousand.

“The figures do not indicate either economic growth or a decline in the number of entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, the single tax system has become a tool not for the development of entrepreneurship, but for tax evasion by large and medium-sized businesses,” said Hetmantsev.

What preceded this?

The analytical portal "Opendatabot" provided statistics on the closure and opening of IEs throughout 2024. According to the data, in 2024, 254,288 individual entrepreneurs ceased their activities in Ukraine.

There were two surges of mass closures of IEs during the year—in March and November, when a law on tax increases was adopted. According to the portal, after the tax increase, 22.5 thousand IEs stopped operating, and in the first days following this, the number of closures exceeded one thousand daily.

Tax Increases

At the end of November, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law increasing taxes, which, among other things, provided for:

• an increase in the military tax rate from 1.5% to 5%;
• an increase in taxes for groups 1, 2, and 4 of IEs;
• the establishment of a profit tax for group 3 IEs through the military tax, etc.

The issue became the date from which the increased taxes would apply. After President Zelensky signed the tax increase law on November 28, it was immediately published in "Golos Ukrainy," which meant it would automatically come into effect.

As explained by people's deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak, this meant that during the 28 days of November, one tax rate (1.5% military tax) was in effect, while the remaining 2 days had a rate of 5%.

Initially, it was proposed to raise taxes starting from October 1, thus retroactively. However, in the end, it was decided that the law would take effect from December 1 of this year. The implementation of taxation for IEs was postponed to January 1, 2025.