The process of de-shadowing the Ukrainian economy has significantly stalled, leading to a 2.6% shortfall in tax revenues in 2025. Despite the leadership changes, the Bureau of Economic Security is not showing effective results in combating large-scale schemes. This was stated by the head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Tax, and Customs Policy, Danylo Hetmantsev, as reported by agronews.ua.
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According to him, the helplessness of law enforcement agencies is causing no less harm to the state than direct corruption.
Hetmantsev noted that the state still cannot provide equal conditions for businesses due to the operation of shadow markets in many areas. This includes the electronics market, restaurant business, car sales, and excisable goods market.
Key de-shadowing issues:
Gambling business: due to the lack of a state online monitoring system, the budget loses 20 billion UAH annually. Hetmantsev blames the Ministry of Digital Transformation and the state agency “PlayCity” for this failure.
Tobacco and alcohol markets: the introduction of electronic excise stamps continues to be blocked, which legal businesses constantly complain about.
Tax revenues: while de-shadowing brought in an additional $2.5 billion in 2024, in 2025 there was a shortfall of 33 million UAH.
According to the head of the relevant committee, after nine months of work by the new team, the Bureau of Economic Security remains “cluttered” and professionally incapable. Hetmantsev emphasized the lack of real changes in territorial administrations and the inefficiency of targeted implementations.
“The leadership of the Bureau has an irrepressible reformist itch, but there is no specific work to clean up the room and bring order,” the MP stressed.
He added that the leadership of the Bureau now faces a choice: either start demonstrating concrete results in the fight against schemes or step down. Resisting the “clan system” in the financial sector remains the main challenge for reform.