Telegram 
Viber 
Whatsapp 
Messenger The problem of responding to taxpayers’ requests
As soon as the Tax Code of Ukraine (NKU) came into force, all legal experts immediately began discussing the problem related to providing a response to a request from the tax office. This issue is regulated by the provisions of Articles 73.3 and 78.1 of the NKU.
By law, the request itself must contain the following information:
- a list of the requested information;
- a list of documents substantiating the information;
- the grounds on which the request was sent.
These requirements were often simply ignored by tax officials. Instead of indicating the reasons for the request, whether detected violations during inspections, errors in the declaration, or complaints from counterparties, they merely referred to articles in the Tax Code of Ukraine (NKU) that set out their powers.
To provide a sufficiently complete response to such a request that would satisfy the tax authorities, the taxpayer would gather all primary documents for the period of interest to the tax office and send them. But not everyone guessed correctly, and, as a result, another unscheduled off-site inspection would ensue.
Having learned from bitter experience, taxpayers, upon receiving such a request again, refused to provide a response, citing non-compliance with the requirements for the form of the request, and later successfully challenged the order to conduct inspections.
It is pleasing that the judiciary stood up for the taxpayer and made decisions in their favor.
Finally, in October 2013 the necessary amendments were made to the Tax Code of Ukraine (NKU), clarifying the requirements for the content of the request set out in Art. 78.1 of the NKU. These changes are as follows:
- Information is requested to confirm specific facts and violations. The request must clearly list possible violations of tax legislation and information on how they were detected.
- Information is requested to confirm the data in the declaration. In this case, the taxpayer must not confirm the amount indicated in the declaration, but rather refute the amount that constitutes the discrepancy with the declared amount, or prove its inaccuracy.
- Information is requested to confirm information from a counterparty’s complaint. Since a complaint serves as the basis for an unscheduled on-site inspection of the seller (supplier), the tax authority must send a request specifying all the information from the complaint. The law does not provide a specific deadline for responding to such a request. By analogy with the law, it can be concluded that the taxpayer must respond within one month.