On October 18, the Parliament approved the 2019 Draft State Budget Law in the first reading. The Ministry of Finance and the Verkhovna Rada Budget Committee succeeded to maintain key fiscal indicators rather realistic. This was difficult, as the MPs submitted more than two thousands amendments to the initial draft. If all amendments were approved fiscal spending would increase by UAH 2.2 trillion and revenues would grow by UAH 0.8 trillion. Suggested additional revenues are unrealistic as they are based on wrong assumptions, while there were no details how to finance resulting huge fiscal gap.
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