Imagine you rent an apartment, and the tax authorities suddenly tell you to pay as if you were buying the right to use someone else's invention. This is roughly how Ukrainian airlines describe the situation with aircraft leasing, which the Bureau of Economic Security has decided to equate with royalties — payments for intellectual property.
The difference is not just terminological, but financial: treating leasing as royalties provides grounds for charging a 15% tax on non-resident income for each aircraft rental payment. For an industry already operating on the brink of profitability, this could mean millions of hryvnias in additional obligations — retroactively.
Where did the idea of a "patent aircraft" come from
The logic of the BEB can be traced back to a 2024 article published by the previous team of the State Tax Service. It proposed taxing leasing operations for non-resident transport as royalties. According to industry lawyers, investigators took this idea and built criminal cases on it that textually "resemble each other as if copied from the same template".
The result is at least five open proceedings against carriers, including MAU, Airline Konstanta, Urga, H3Operations, and Skyline Express. In the BEB's logic, an aircraft or helicopter ceases to be a vehicle and becomes merely "equipment" — a category that is easier to classify as royalties.
What the law says and why conventions matter more than internal guidelines
Lawyers point to a direct contradiction: international conventions on avoiding double taxation, which Ukraine has ratified, do not provide for the possibility of treating aviation leasing as royalties. And Article 3 of the Tax Code directly establishes the priority of international treaties over national norms if they conflict.
The Finance Ministry, in response to a UNN request, answered cautiously, confirming that taxation should occur in accordance with the Tax Code and international treaties. This is formally a neutral response, but it effectively leaves room for two opposite interpretations — precisely the space where the dispute is now taking place.
Another telling detail: according to the STS, airlines have already undergone tax audits, and violations in leasing taxation were recorded in only one case out of several. The remaining audits found no violations — meaning the fiscal body itself lacks a unified position within the system.
Aviation business requires legal certainty and clear working rules in order to be able to plan its activities
These are the words of Ruslan Melnychenko, head of the legal committee of the Aerospace Association of Ukraine, who participated in the first meeting of the tax committee of the Public Council under the Finance Ministry. According to his assessment, the fact that representatives of the Finance Ministry, experts, and business sat down at the same table is already a positive shift after prolonged state silence.
A working group exists. The question is whether there will be results before new criminal cases
As a result of the meeting, it was decided to establish a working group under the Finance Ministry to prepare a draft general tax consultation — a document that should once and for all resolve the discrepancies in the interpretation of leasing payments. This is exactly the kind of clarification the industry is waiting for, emphasizing that dialogue for dialogue's sake is not what it needs.
Meanwhile, the BEB refused to explain to UNN on what grounds it bases its interpretation of leasing as royalties. This leaves open the key question: does the creation of a working group mean a real pause in criminal prosecution, or will investigative actions against airlines continue in parallel as officials discuss the wording of the clarification.
If the general consultation appears in the coming weeks and clearly excludes the interpretation of aviation leasing as royalties, the five open criminal cases will lose their legal foundation. If the process is delayed, the industry will find itself in a situation where the state simultaneously conducts dialogue about the rules and prosecutes for non-compliance — even though the rules themselves have not yet been formulated.
