KIEV, Nov. 16 – Thousands of small business owners swarmed in front of Parliament on Tuesday for a massive rally against new tax legislation they fear favors large companies while putting greater pressure on small businesses.

About 30,000 protesters demanded lawmakers stop the legislation, which some analysts believe may cost Ukraine more than 1 million in lost jobs.

The legislation, known as the Tax Code, seeks to cut corporate taxes for big companies over the next five years, but will effectively increase and make more complex taxes on small businesses.

“Members of the government, lawmakers and oligarchs are stealing by billions of hrynias, while small entrepreneurs are accused of not paying hundreds of hryvnias in social security,” Dmytro Hnap, a social activist, said.

The protests swept Ukraine’s other regions with at least 10,000 people threatening to storm a local government office in Khmelnytskiy and at least 2,000 people rallying in front of the Kharkiv government.

The action represents the largest protest rally against the policy of President Viktor Yaukovych’s government since the end of April, when Parliament had supported a controversial agreement with Russia on extending the stay of its naval fleet in Ukraine for 25 years.

Ukraine’s largest opposition party, Batkivshchyna, backed the protest action and was seeking to join it, but small business leaders had decided for now to focus on economic - not political - demands.

“Entrepreneurs are using all opportunities at their disposal in order to force the authorities to listen to them,” Batkivshchyna said in a statement.

The 500-page legislation, which was approved by 247 lawmakers in the 450-seat Parliament in the first reading in June, seeks to cut corporate tax to 20% from 25% in 2011 and gradually reduce it to 16% in 2014.