Ukrainian lawmakers used a must-pass tax bill—the one extending the wartime 5% military levy under Ukraine’s new $8.1 billion International Monetary Fund program—to exempt themselves from any reporting on about 199,000 hryvnias ($4,555) in monthly state compensation. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed Law 4835-IX on 15 April.
Western funding to Ukraine is conditioned on traceable public spending.
It comes four months after Ukraine’s anti-corruption bureau caught five MPs from Zelenskyy’s party taking $2,000–$20,000 in bribes for parliamentary votes. Western funding to Ukraine—including the EU’s €50 billion ($59 billion) Ukraine Facility—is conditioned on traceable public spending.
The bill passed 257–2 with four abstentions. MPs also voted 250 in favor to send it for immediate presidential signature, bypassing standard waiting periods to meet the IMF spring meetings on 13–18 April.
What the law actually does
Bill 15110 was a tax-code amendment that extended the 5% military levy for three years after martial law ends, according to Ukrinform. The revenue—about 140 billion hryvnias ($3.2 billion)—is earmarked for the Armed Forces.
The final text on the Verkhovna Rada portal also rewrites Article 32, Part 4 of the Law on the Status of People’s Deputies. The new version states the MP “independently, at their own discretion, determines the directions and procedure for using the funds … does not report and bears no legal responsibility.” The amendment surfaced at the committee stage on 7 April, without being attributed to a named author.
The funds are now hidden from parliament.
Lawyer Taras Borovskyi, speaking on Hromadske Radio, called the insertion a violation of legislative technique—an MP-status amendment grafted onto a tax bill. He also flagged a contradiction with the Anti-Corruption Law, which still requires MPs to declare all income to the National Agency on Corruption Prevention.
The funds are now hidden from parliament. Whether they appear in NACP declarations depends on each MP and on enforcement.
A budget that already tripled the payments
In December 2025, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the 2026 budget, tripling the monthly Fund for Parliamentary Powers to 199,000 hryvnias ($4,555), tax-free. The provision appeared in the budget committee’s conclusions without floor debate, LB.ua reported.
“The enemies of the budget are certainly not those who vote against tripling their own expenses.”
Servant of the People MP Pavlo Frolov, a budget committee member, broke ranks and posted on Facebook: “I did not support this decision. The enemies of the budget are certainly not those who vote against tripling their own expenses.”
Frolov wrote that he lost friends and colleagues in parliament over his position, facing “a wave of criticism and outright dirt.” December tripled the amount. April removed the obligation to report on it. The discretionary regime moved from a single budget year into the permanent text of the law on parliamentary status.
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The leverage trick
Bill 15110 was one of four structural benchmarks Ukraine had to pass by the end of March under the new IMF program, Kyiv Post reported. Attaching the MP self-exemption to this bill made it expensive to oppose.
Two MPs voted against. Four abstained.
A vote against the amended package was a vote against IMF financing, against extending the military levy, and against meeting the spring-meeting deadline. Two MPs voted against. Four abstained.
A parallel self-dealing amendment on the same IMF-deadline track—an attempt to gut lifelong financial monitoring of officials, inserted into a separate parcels-taxation bill—was spotted by Servant of the People MP Olha Vasylevska-Smahliuk on 6 April and pulled within 24 hours. The Article 32 amendment was not caught.
What surrounds it
In July 2025, Ukrainians filled the streets to reverse an attempt to subordinate NABU and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office to the prosecutor general—which anti-corruption architect Daria Kaleniuk warned had handed Putin “his best argument” against Ukraine.
The IMF’s February 2026 country report named the AML/CFT system as a specific vulnerability that Ukraine had committed to strengthen.
The Article 32 amendment removes one category of public money.
Western support for Ukraine rests on a principle: public money is traceable. The IMF program is built on it; the Ukraine Facility is conditioned on it; EU accession depends on it. The Article 32 amendment removes one category of public money from that principle, inside the same bill Ukraine passed to unlock the IMF’s next tranche.
Frolov, on the same Facebook post: “During the war, we do not have the moral right to increase spending on ourselves.”
