Tax audits during the period of martial law in Ukraine

Abstract

The article reveals the peculiarities of conducting tax audits by controlling bodies. In Ukraine, a ban on the implementation of tax supervision (control) measures has been in effect since March 18, 2020, from the beginning of the introduction of quarantine restrictions. With the introduction of martial law, the moratorium was extended, but there are a number of exceptions that require detailed study. The purpose of the article is to study the problematic issues of conducting tax audits in conditions of instability of tax legislation: martial law and quarantine restrictions due to COVID-19, as a result of changes to the legal framework. The chronology of changes made to the Tax Code of Ukraine (TCU) during half a year of martial law was analyzed. The first “wartime” law extended the quarantine moratorium on tax audits under martial law, and subsequent ones made changes to the TCU. During martial law, any tax audits cannot be started, and those that have been started are suspended. The exception is cameral and factual audits, as well as unscheduled documentary audits, which are carried out on a voluntary basis at the request of payers. The grounds for such checks are also the receipt by the controlling body of information about the existence of violations of the norms of tax or currency law on the part of the payer. The results of the study were obtained by means of theoretical and methodological analysis of the provisions that highlight the problematic issues of verification of the activities of payers. The goal was achieved as a result of the application of an in-depth content assessment of the norms of tax law, aimed at understanding the essence of the types of tax audits and the peculiarities of their implementation in the conditions of martial law, the official website of the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine and the State Tax Service of Ukraine, as well as a number of scientific publications on this issue of research. The article is aimed at studying key problems in the field of tax administration as a whole and in the context of the implementation of relevant tax control measures

Keywords

• tax supervision (control)
• cameral audits
• factual audits
• documentary audits
• quarantine restrictions