During the meeting of land office, the UAC Deputy Chairman Mykhailo Sokolov emphasized the problematic issues that arose with the launch of the land market. In particular, he supported an importance to refine the process of concluding land purchase and sale agreements by notaries and adjust their value, as the procedure takes a lot of time and too expensive.

Another problematic issue that needs to be solved is the assessment of land by the State Property Fund, as a result of which the value of land plots is too high.

"There is an automatic assessment of land by the State Property Fund, which gives unreal high values, for example, up to USD 10,000 per 1 hectare. It is a basis for taxation. Accordingly, in many cases it blocks the implementation of an agreement, because of too high taxes. The cost of an arrangement and a tax burden are incompatible with a real price," the UAC Deputy Chairman said.

Mykhailo Sokolov also mentioned another problematic issue, which has not been still announced - the taxation of agreements on the transfer of preemptive rights, upon which the State Tax Service insists on.

"The subject of the preferential right for agricultural land purchase, as a rule, is a legal entity that leases these land plots. It is a payer of value added tax (VAT). When a legal entity enters into an agreement on the transfer of a preferential right, the tax service interprets it as a transaction that is subject to taxation. At least this is the interpretation in many cases. Because a certain benefit is transferred to an individual, not a taxpayer. But the question arises “How fair is this?”. Because if a legal entity directly buys land from an individual, there will be no tax liability. The second point is technical one - what is the value of this preferential right? After all, it is the basis for tax liabilities. There is also uncertainty – how to assess taxes. We think, such transactions should not be taxed at all," the UAC Deputy Chairman said.

The participants of the meeting agreed to work out concrete proposals on each problematic issue and discuss them during the next meeting of the land office, which will take place on September 14, 2021.