The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved the Procedures for maintaining unified registers of licensees of fuel, alcoholic beverages and tobacco products. On April 21, 2023, at a meeting of the Government, the issue of maintaining unified state registers of licensees for the production and circulation of alcohol, alcoholic beverages, tobacco products and liquids used in electronic cigarettes, and licensees of fuel circulation sites was settled.
The decision was adopted by the Cabinet of Ministers in implementation of Law of Ukraine ‘On Amendments to the Tax Code of Ukraine and Some Legislative Acts of Ukraine on Ensuring the Balance of Budget Revenues’, which introduced the need to maintain a unified register of licensees for the production and circulation of alcohol, alcoholic beverages, tobacco products and liquids that are used in electronic cigarettes, as well as changes have been made to the information entered into the Unified Register of licensees and places of fuel circulation (the need to enter the date of issuance/cancellation and the validity period of the license for the right to manufacture, store, wholesale, and retail fuel has been introduced).
The Government's decision approved the Procedure for maintaining the Unified Register of licensees for the production and distribution of alcohol, and the new version of the Procedure for maintaining the unified register of licensees and places of fuel distribution was approved. The specified procedures determine the procedure for creating and maintaining registers of licensees, which are maintained in accordance with economic entities conducting activities based on issued licenses.
In accordance with the resolution, the Procedures establish the procedure for including a business entity in the registers of licensees, entering information about the cancellation of a license into the registers, as well as storing information about licenses that have been canceled or whose validity period has expired.
The introduced changes provide an opportunity to standardize the procedure for creating and maintaining registers of licensees.
The President of Ukraine signed the Law of Ukraine No. 2970-IX of March 20, 2023 ‘On Amendments to the Tax Code of Ukraine regarding the implementation of the international standard of automatic exchange of information on financial accounts’.
Also, this document increases the term of storage by economic entities of primary documents, accounting registers, financial statements and documents related to the calculation and payment of taxes from 3 to 5 years
The law was developed for the purpose of Ukraine's implementation of the Common Reporting Standard and Due Diligence of Information on Financial Accounts, approved by the OECD (hereinafter – CRS). Implementation of CRS into national legislation is a mandatory condition for Ukraine to join the international information exchange system within the framework of the Multilateral Competent Authorities Agreement on the automatic exchange of financial accounts information (hereinafter – the MCAA), which Ukraine, represented by the State Tax Service, joined in August 2022 year
In particular, the main provisions of the law establish:
- functions and rights of supervisory authorities to ensure the receipt of information necessary for exchange, in accordance with CRS;
- requirements for financial agents to apply the rules of CRS during due diligence of financial accounts and to submit to the State Tax Service the information about the financial accounts of account holders who are tax residents of other jurisdictions – information exchange partners;
- requirements regarding the minimum period of storage of documents and the procedure for providing such documents to the supervisory authority by certain business entities;
- procedure for obtaining information for tax purposes by the supervisory authority in accordance with CRS and at the request of the competent authority of a foreign jurisdiction on the basis of an international agreement;
- effective control mechanism for compliance with the requirements of CRS by financial agents.
The adoption of this Law will make it possible to ensure Ukraine's proper fulfillment of international obligations regarding the exchange of information for tax purposes, increase the transparency and reliability of Ukraine as a partner state for information exchange, and also contribute to the prevention of tax evasion and increase the level of compliance with tax legislation.
The text of CRS in Ukrainian and English, as well as clarifications and draft documents, is posted on the website of the Ministry of Finance.
The National Bank of Ukraine by Resolution No. 54 of April 21, 2023 ‘On Approval of Amendments to the Regulation on the Procedure for Authorization of the Activities of Providers of Financial Payment Services and Limited Payment Services’ specified the procedure for authorization of the activities of providers of financial payment services and limited payment services.
Such a decision of the regulator is due to the need to bring the regulatory framework into line with the current legislation of Ukraine, in particular in connection with the implementation of Laws of Ukraine No. 2888-IX of January 12, 2023 ‘On Amendments to the Tax Code of Ukraine and Other Legislative Acts of Ukraine regarding Payment Services’ and No. 2849 of December 13, 2022 ‘On Media’.
In particular, for this purpose, the National Bank:
- clarified the definition of terms regarding legal entities that have the right to provide limited payment services, in order to bring them into line with the legislation;
- clarified the list of providers of financial payment services, which are required to ensure the proper functioning of the corporate governance system, internal control and proper risk management, as well as to conduct an internal audit (control) of their activities for the provision of payment services in accordance with the requirements of the law;
- excluded the rule regarding the possibility of combining the activities of providing financial payment services with the provision of limited payment services by payment institutions and electronic money institutions;
- provided an opportunity for applicants to submit a reasoned explanation to the National Bank in the event of the impossibility of submitting a document or providing information necessary for the authorization of the activity of financial payment service providers;
- determined the circle of persons for whom the regulator assesses business reputation (now the norm will apply only to the key participant of the applicant);
- for new applicants who do not have a valid money transfer license, clarified the list of documents required to obtain authorization of activity (applicants must provide the original certificate on the absence or presence of arrears in the payment of taxes and fees; a credit report from qualified credit bureaus regarding the applicant).
The National Bank of Ukraine, by Resolution No. 55 of the Board of the National Bank of Ukraine of April 22, 2023 ‘On Amendments to Resolution of the Board of the National Bank of Ukraine No. 173 of August 6, 2022’, postponed the application of separate tariffs for depository services until May 23, 2023. Namely:
- tariffs for depository services of depository institutions;
- tariffs for servicing Eurobonds transactions (hereinafter – ETS), which are carried out for the benefit of depositors of the NBU during its performance as a depository institution.
The National Bank, as before, calls on depository institutions to minimize or cancel the relevant tariffs for their clients for the period of the absence of NBU depository tariffs in order to spread instruments that contribute to maintaining the stability of public finances during a full-scale war.
According to the NBU's estimates, the further postponement of the tariffs for these services will support the state finances of Ukraine, in particular, thanks to the preservation of favorable conditions for the government to attract financing on the domestic debt market and the reduction of costs during the management of the public debt.
This time, the National Bank postponed the application of individual tariffs for a month in view of the plans to consider the feasibility of updating the general line of tariffs, which, in particular, may involve the introduction of a separate preferential approach to the tariffing of military domestic government loan bonds services.
The Ministry of Finance of Ukraine, by Order No. 113 of March 2, 2023, made changes to the form of the Tax calculation of the amounts of income accrued (paid) for the benefit of taxpayers – natural persons, and the amounts of tax withheld from them, as well as the amounts of the accrued single contribution and the Procedure for filling it out and submitting by tax agents.
The new edition sets out the forms of:
- Tax calculation;
- Appendix 1 ‘Information on calculation of wages (income, financial support) to insured persons’;
- Appendix 3 ‘Information on those undergoing military service’;
- Appendix 4 ДФ ‘Information on the amounts of accrued income, withheld and paid personal income tax and military duty’;
- Appendix 6 ‘Information on the existence of grounds for accounting for seniority for certain categories of persons in accordance with the legislation’.
Column 26 ‘Sign of the existence of an employment contract with non-fixed working hours (1 –yes, 0 – no)’, which is established in accordance with Art. 211 of Chapter III of the Labor Code, will appear. The sign ‘1’ is placed if the employee performs work on the basis of an employment contract with unfixed working hours, the sign ‘0’ – if the conditions of Art. 211 of Chapter III of the Labor Code are applied.
Order No. 113 enters into force on the day of its official publication.
The State Tax Service of Ukraine will unblock tax invoices/adjustment calculations (TI/AC) according to the new Procedure. The project of the new order provides for:
1. The recipient (buyer) has the right to initiate the presentation of explanations and copies of documents for unlocking negative AC, for which:
- the recipient (buyer) sends such an explanation and copies of documents to the supplier (seller) in electronic form through the electronic cabinet;
- the supplier (seller) provides such an explanation and copies of documents to the State Tax Service.
The recipient (buyer) receives through the electronic cabinet information about the date of submission of explanations and copies of documents by the supplier (seller) and the result of consideration of such explanations, as well as copies of documents of the regional commission.
2. In the event that the product/service code of the transaction that became the basis for the blocking appears in the receipt to TI/AC, the payer may submit written explanations and copies of documents to such transaction.
Other changes are purely redecoration. But there is one interesting one among them.
The current order of unblocking provides that the payer must provide contracts, in particular foreign economic contracts, among the documents. This wording led to the fact that payers who have never had foreign economic activities were refused registration due to the failure to provide foreign economic contracts.
The Ministry of Finance decided to make changes to this item. The new text stipulates that the payer must provide contracts, including foreign economic contracts, to unlock TI/AC. We hope that this wording will help those who is not engaged in FEA.
In addition. the list of documents required for the submission of explanations is supplemented by other documents confirming the information specified in the tax invoice/adjustment calculation, the registration of which in the Register has been stopped.
