Environmental protection facilities may be declared bankrupt in the near future

The Ministry of Environment does not transfer funds for the payment of land tax for territorial communities within the boundaries of PZF (nature reserve fund) objects, and tax officials, meanwhile, undertake to block the accounts of PZF objects and describe the property of debtors. Such a situation arose at once in several large nature conservation facilities. Less critical, for dozens of other objects.
Let us emphasize that we are talking about non-profit budget institutions, in the existence of which both the State of Ukraine and the people of Ukraine are interested. These institutions protect national and world natural heritage.
For example, we will stop at the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve, one of the leading nature reserve objects of Ukraine.

Starting last year, the Ministry of Environment of Ukraine underfunded the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve with the payment of a land tax of UAH 29.5 million.
In turn, due to the non-payment of taxes, the Main Directorate of the DPS in Zakarpattia Oblast has tried several times to carry out an inventory of the reserve’s property as a pledge and filed an administrative lawsuit against the budget for the recovery of the tax debt for land tax for UAH 19.6 million, which was formed on now.
Along with this, the GU DPS in the Transcarpathian region conducted a check of the correctness of the calculation and payment of land tax by the reserve and, contrary to the explanation of the Main Department of the State Geocadastre in the Transcarpathian region, obliged the institution to additionally index the value of the normative monetary assessment of land plots and to pay additional land tax for UAH 12.5 million.
According to its Regulations, KBZ is a budgetary, non-profit, environmental protection research institution of international importance.
If the GU DPS in the Zakarpattia region does not consider the objections of the KBZ or the court does not take the side of the reserve, its debt will reach more than UAH 41 million.
The situation may get out of control shortly due to the DPS blocking of KBZ accounts and forced collection of funds to repay the land tax. That is, the state control body will block the activities of the biosphere reserve of international importance, although the Ministry of Environment must allocate funds to pay all the debts.
During the war, many OTGs of Transcarpathia needed more funding. They need land tax funds from KBZ. However, the position of the state authorities, which is making the reserve bankrupt due to underfunding, needs to be clarified. For what purpose? Selling national heritage businesses for next to nothing? Firing unsympathetic directors? Stopping the work of nature reserve institutions, starting the mechanisms of their degradation and destruction?
We call on the Ministry of Environment to intervene and adopt appropriate legislative initiatives and executive decisions to stop the tax crisis in PZF institutions.