Ukraine's difficult tax laws mean companies need experts to guide them through the maze.

Everybody knows that Ukraine's tax system is one of the most burdensome in the world. According to the World Bank's Doing Business 2010 report, Ukrainian companies spend, on average, more than 800 hours per year on payroll tax compliance - almost 5 times more than in the United States of America and several times more than in Russia.

Tax planning for private individuals becomes more and more of a challenge, given growing global mobility and Ukraine's vague tax law environment. The situation also became more complicated with recent changes in the Ukrainian tax authorities' approach towards taxing foreigners in Ukraine.

But for every problem, there is a solution, lawyers say. Tax optimization keeps being one of the leading practices for law firms and business consultancies. For a fee of Hrn 1000 to 3000 Euro, depending on whether it is a small local law firm or an international market head, lawyers advise on how to optimize an individual's tax burden.

A lot of tax optimization projects focus on tax residential status in Ukraine. Ukrainian tax residence status permits an individual to benefit from a more favorable tax rate, at 15 percent, in contrast to the 30 percent tax rate that non-residents face. Hence, to get Ukrainian tax residence status became much harder last year.

"The procedure for getting tax residence status became burdensome, and is sometimes almost impossible to finish," notes Dina Bokatova, tax and legal consultant for Ernst & Young Ukraine, one of the Big Four international accounting giants.