Strategy to combat money laundering will hit businesses

Strategy for combating money laundering, adopted by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine may complicate entrepreneurial activity. This opinion exclusively for UBR.UA expressed economist InvestGroup "Art Capital" Oleg Iwaniec. "It is very likely that" the development strategy of combating the legalization (laundering) ... until 2015 "adopted by the Cabinet yesterday, will entail the emergence of new bureaucratic procedures that complicate business activities, especially foreign trade, although in general the special effects should not expect. While obtaining informal income in Ukraine is so common, that little success will be difficult to achieve. The main objective of this same strategy - a demonstration of international organizations to Ukraine's aspirations to combat illegal incomes ", - said Iwaniec. The expert believes that the adoption of measures not be the breakthrough in the fight against money laundering in Ukraine. In his opinion, it needs to liberalize the fiscal system . 'In my opinion, the best strategy would be to liberalize the tax legislation, a significant decrease in rates and simplification of regulatory procedures. Then I'd practice of tax evasion would become less common and, respectively, to identify the criminal business would be easier. In the prevailing circumstances to change the situation almost impossible ", - said Iwaniec. As previously reported, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved a five-year strategy for combating the legalization of proceeds from crime. Also already in place in Ukraine, measures such as anti-conversion centers and fictitious companies, and and operations through offshore zones, the government intends to toughen the penalties for manipulating the stock market and the illegal use of insider information. Relevant issues are the development of mechanisms to identify conversion centers and businesses with fictitious symptoms, analysis of foreign operations by entities via offshore zone, avoiding the use of cash and an increase in non-cash transactions, classification of clients and operations risk-based system. Among other things, the government proposes to introduce criminal liability for manipulation in the stock market and increased penalties for illegal use of insider information. These crimes should be classified as a predicate (wrongful acts, preceded by a money-laundering) as required by the Council of Europe Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the "dirty" money. In addition, all predicate crimes Cabinet proposes to distribute the measure to confiscate money or property. Implementation of these proposals will allow Ukraine to become a "partner for the international community in fighting legalization "of" dirty "money and improve investment attractiveness.