The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine announced new wave of labor legislation changes which, in particular, propose to increase annual vocations, provide for flexible working hours and remote work.
European Business Association supported the modernization of relationships between employer and staff. Business representatives see fit to change the soviet Labor Code (LC) for the modern one and give up trying to make single changes to the labor legislation. Updated text has been waiting for consideration in Parliament’s second reading (Draft law 1658). However, it doesn’t provide for real changes in law legislation in many respects, so it should be substantially improved and at the same time reserve key innovation.
Business proposed following innovations:
- possibility to conclude labor contracts (contract-based type of relationships) as well as term contracts;
- moving from paper-based to electronic form of communication with an employer;
- increase of annual vocation from 24 to 30 days;
- possibility to test all the employee assessing both hard and soft skills;
- liberalization and adaptation to modern requirements of relationships between an employer and trade union and revision of trade unions’ powers;
- simplification of hiring and dismissal procedure, including possibility to fire an employee in the event of committing actions which are subject to criminal, administrative, civil, legal and disciplinary responsibility under legislation of prevention of corruption;
- implementation of single working environment authority instead of a bunch of different agencies which operate right now;
- systematic failure to perform assigned tasks or gross labor misconduct must suffice for dismissal;
- moving outdated occupational classification to nonbinding instruments;
- extension of list of persons who may be employed without obtaining license to employ foreigners or stateless persons.
State Fiscal Service of Ukraine answered the question listed in category “ЗІР” 119.11: “How can a taxpayer form and send a message according to form 20-ОПП, an application according to forms 1-ОПП and 17-ОПП through User Account?”
Filing of documents through means of electronic communication in electronic form is made by the taxpayer in accordance with rules provided in Tax Code of Ukraine (hereinafter – TCU) and Procedure of exchanging electronic documents with controlling authority approved by Ministry of Finance order 557 (hereinafter – Order 557).
According to p.3 Chapter II of Order 557 a payer forms am electronic document within terms an in manner specified by the legislation on appropriate documents in electronic and paper form indicating all necessary information.
Access to the User Account via http://cabinet.sfs.gov.ua, or via official web-site of the State Fiscal Service (hereinafter – SFS).
Public and private parts of the User Account in “Support” section contains step-by-step guideline on creation of electronic documents using “Statement entry” regime.
“Statement entry” that contains in the private section of the User Account provides for opportunity to form and present to appropriate controlling authority tax, finance, statistic statement and statement on single contribution to the compulsory State social insurance including a message according to form 20-ОПП (J/F1312002), an application according to forms 1-ОПП (J1312101), and 17-ОПП (J/F1312201).
State Fiscal Service of Ukraine through the Office of large taxpayers units drew the attention to the mistakes made by payers of green tax when reporting.
Starting January 1, 2016 State Tax Inspectorate receives one declaration on green tax that indicates Classifier of objects of administrative and territorial system of Ukraine (hereinafter – COATSU) according to the location of controlling authority where one tax declaration with necessary amount of annexes. So, each declaration submitted is given an automatic specification “history of submission” in relation to which the event may occur that the payer has indicated the obligations on particular COATSU and accrued tax obligation indicated in the integrated card are absent resulting in overpayment.
In addition, during filling out of the declaration the payers of green tax do not mention that starting January 1, 2019 that rate for carbon dioxide emission was increased by 24.4 times, thus instead of 0.41 UHA/tn one must pay 10 UAH/tn.
Statement about carbon dioxide emissions is presented as separate annex 1 to declaration, that is sometimes overlooked.
Annex to declaration contains code of group of substances (emissions) instead of code of particular contaminating substance, and that is wrong.
Frequently the payers in annexes to the declaration refer the code of a particular contaminating substance while giving the rate of another one or even fill out one annex instead of another.
Given the abovementioned subtleties, the payers are called to be more attentive and reminded that deadlines for submitting a tax declaration for the second quarter of this year and paying all green tax obligations are August 9 and 19, 2019 respectively.
State Fiscal Service of Ukraine warned in its individual tax consultation: “Regarding the application of financial sanctions for the sale of fuel without a license through an electronic cash register not specified in the license” No. 3566/6/99-99-12-01-01-15/ІПК of July 30, 2019 that according to art. 17 of Law of Ukraine “On state regulation of production and circulation of ethyl alcohol, cognac and fruit spirits, alcoholic drinks and tobacco” No. 481 of December 19, 1995 the business entities are subject to financial sanctions such as fines, in particular in event of:
- retail trade in fuel without license;
- separately for retail trade in fuel through payment transaction recorder (hereinafter – PTR) (book of accounting payment transactions) not mentioned in the license (if a business entity has a license for retail trade in fuel).
Art. 164 of the Code on Administrative Offences of Ukraine also provides for responsibility for retail trade in fuel without license.
State Labor Service of Ukraine gave an insight in how to properly put on the staff a person who works in a part-time position as substitute for a temporary absent employee.
According to the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine (hereinafter – CMU) regulation “On the remuneration of employees on the basis of the Uniform Wage Scale for remuneration of employees of institutions, institutions and organizations of certain sectors of the budget sphere” No. 1298 of August 30, 2002 the employees may receive fringe benefit in the amount of 50% of their fixed official salary for performing duties of temporary absent employees, combining of professions (positions), expansion of service zone or increase of the volume of work performed.
A decision on particular amount of fringe benefit for temporary absent employee is made by the head of the entity, institution taking into consideration the complexity, nature and volume of work performed, and expenditure of main working hours.
The performance of duties of temporary absent employee should be understood as substitution of an employee who is temporarily absent due to short-term disability, business trip, vocation, implementation of public duties, etc., when according to the legislation in force a person reserves official place (position).
The fringe benefit is not made for performance of duties of the temporary absent employee whose position is vacant and listed in schedule of positions and salaries but still not filled in.
The employees perform the duties of the temporary absent employee simultaneously with performing their main duties within the framework of approved work (shift) schedule with indicated working (shift) hours.
A designation to perform additional work in performance of duties of temporary absent employee is formalized by administrative order which is approved with the employee. According to art. 31 of LCU an owner or authorized body does not have the right to demand from an employee to perform work not specified by labor contract.
Current legislation does not provide for direct employer’s obligation to entrust another employee with the duties of the employee who is temporary absent due to vocation, short-term disability. The decision to entrust the employee with additional duties while another employee is temporarily absent is made by each entity (institution, organization) on individual basis and depends on such factors as operational necessity, financial means, consent of the employee being entrusted with the additional duties, etc.
At the same time, in accordance with Chapter 61 of the Civil Code of Ukraine an employee has the right to work under conditions provided in civil law contract concluded for a given term. The relations that occurs due to the fact of the conclusion of such contract are regulated by civil law.
The Supreme Court of Ukraine in its ruling of July 3, 2019 on case No. 520/11 437/16-ц stated that if the entity did not considere the director’s letter of dismissal, it did not meet the requirements of labor law or commit any action to deal with the dismissal of physical entity from his position as director of the entity. So, the company violates a suitor’s right to terminate labor relations. In this particular case, the provisions of the law on written notification of an owner on employee’s readiness to resign is invalid and at the same time the law doesn’t provide for any other possibility for employee to dismiss on his/her own initiative. Still the imperfection of national legislation and loopholes in legal regulation of certain relations may not be considered as ground for deprivation of person’s right to protection of his/her rights in a chosen way.
This case was initiated almost three years ago. Then judges received a claim of physical entity who had been appointed as a director of the limited liability company (hereinafter – LLC) by the resolution of the general meeting of shareholders. After six years of work he addressed the general meeting with his resignation notice under Art. 38 of LCU. On the same day he sent to the only company’s shareholder notice of general meeting of company’s shareholders indicating the agenda where the issue of his resignation was placed. However, the general meeting didn’t take place as the only shareholder didn’t show up. In suitor’s opinion, it led to the violation of his labor tights, as he was deprived of the possibility to freely chose his occupation as provided on art.43 of the Constitution of Ukraine.
Given the abovementioned the suitor asked the court to acknowledge his resignation from director position under art. 38 of LCU (on the employee’s initiative) on the date the decision on the case became effective and took of the Unified State Register of legal and physical entities (hereinafter – USR) information about him.
The Supreme Court highlighted that the person the legal claim demanded acknowledgement of resignation from the position of the Company’s director. However according to the corporate charter, the decision on director’s resignation falls within the exclusive competence of the general meeting.
Keeping in mind, that the claim was aimed at termination of labor relations between the suiter and the LLC, the panel of judges of the Supreme Court deems, that the effective remedy which does not contravene the law is to terminate the relations between the suiter and LLC under p.1 of art. 39 of LCU.
The court refuse to comply with the claim to take off the USR the information on the suitor as the director of LLC. The reason for such refusal was that even the state registration under legal decision on registration procedures is possible, the suitor didn’t bring into proceeding a party authorized to perform appropriate registration acts.
