A working group created under the Ministry of Digital Information should find an optimal solution to the issue of taxation of Internet providers, Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine Oleksandr Borniakov said.

"We, together with the Ministry of Finance, the Tax Committee [the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy] have created a working group and want to work out a solution together with the operators, when the simplified system will remain for small operators where it makes sense, so that they can use this system," he said during the hour of questions to the Government in Parliament last Friday.

Responding to a question from Oleksandr Fediyenko, a member of parliament and head of the Verkhovna Rada Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, he said maintaining a simplified system for small businesses is the official position of the ministry.

"(...) However, develop criteria under which, if you have exceeded these criteria, you should move from the simplified system to the general system," Borniakov said.

Everyone should pay taxes, the deputy minister said.

According to him, along with entrepreneurs for whom the simplified system is logical and relevant, there are those who use it, having significant volumes of cash turnover.

Earlier, a public discussion began on the need to change the taxation system for Internet providers in connection with the abuses of a number of companies mimicking small businesses to minimize taxes. Providers who spoke in favor of changes stated that the rules of the game are the same for everyone in the industry. The possibility of canceling the opportunity to use the simplified taxation system for the entire telecommunications market was considered.

In response to this initiative, a petition On preventing the cancellation of the simplified taxation system for taxpayers in the electronic communications sector was registered on the Cabinet of Ministers website. It has already collected 21,300 votes out of the 25,000 required. The authors of the petition call for maintaining the simplified taxation system for electronic communications operators providing Internet access services, and for an end to the pressure on them from tax authorities.

According to the petition, since June 2024, tax service officials have been unlawfully demanding that electronic communications service providers abandon the simplified taxation system and switch to the general taxation system, both by phone and by sending letters and conducting desk audits.

"It seems that the anti-competitive 'policy' in relation to small and medium-sized businesses in the electronic communications sector has a different goal, in particular, the takeover of this business or its destruction and, as a result, depriving consumers of affordable and quality Internet access services," the document says.