The family of Maria Melnyk, the deputy head of the State Tax Service in Ternopil, became significantly richer in 2024 - her husband purchased a new Mercedes-Benz GLE 450D worth over 5 million hryvnias. At the same time, the official's declaration includes a whole collection of apartments, land plots, and commercial real estate in different regions of Ukraine.
According to documents, the Melnyk family owns or uses several apartments at once. Among them are housing in Mogilev-Podilskyi, Ternopil, Vinnytsia, Lviv, and even Kyiv.
Of particular interest is the apartment in Vinnytsia, purchased in 2021 for only 200 thousand hryvnias — an amount that journalists compared with the expenses of the head of Melnyk, Olga Lishchynska, “for the repair of a toilet in the department of the Main Traffic Police Department.”
In 2023, the official’s husband purchased another apartment in a new building in the capital — 70 square meters, worth 2.3 million hryvnias.
In addition to the apartments, the declaration lists two residential buildings — in the villages of Vasylkiv (Ternopil region) and Popelyukhi (Vinnytsia region), as well as a store with an area of 109 sq. m in Mogilev-Podilskyi, which Melnyk's husband purchased back in 2008.
The family owns at least four large plots of land — two in Ternopil region (2.5 hectares each) and two in Vinnytsia region (over 2 hectares each). Some of them were purchased back in 2005–2009 for a symbolic 35–89 thousand hryvnias.
The most high-profile purchase of 2024 was the Mercedes-Benz GLE 450D — a premium crossover that Maria Melnyk's husband bought for over 5.1 million hryvnias. To do this, he took out a loan from Oschadbank for 2.9 million hryvnias.
Interestingly, the family sold their previous car, a 2017 Hyundai Santa Fe, for 1.3 million hryvnias — although the market price of such cars currently ranges from 600,000 to 900,000, which may indicate an overestimation.
For 2024, Maria Melnyk declared a salary of 553 thousand hryvnias and another 35 thousand from property rental. Her husband indicated 5.4 million hryvnias in income from entrepreneurial activity, 44 thousand in pensions and 1.3 million hryvnias from the sale of movable property.
The couple also holds considerable amounts of cash — Melnyk has 540 thousand hryvnias, and her husband has 2.6 million hryvnias. Both also declared 89 thousand hryvnias in bank accounts.
Despite the official income, the Melnyk family's wealth raises questions — especially in the context of buying an expensive car, apartments in new buildings in Kyiv and Lviv, and owning a large amount of land.
Experts note that such declarations demonstrate a systemic problem of opacity in tax authorities — when the standard of living of officials does not correspond to official income.
