Law of Ukraine “On Amendments to the Tax Code of Ukraine and Other Laws of Ukraine on Support of Taxpayers for the Period of Measures to Prevent the Occurrence and Spread of Coronavirus Disease (COVID-9)” No. 533-IX of March 17, 2020, (hereinafter – Law No. 533) came into force. Let’s consider what is going to happen to tax inspections.
Law No. 533 establishes a moratorium on conducting such tax inspections from March 18, 2020 to May 31, 2020:
- scheduled tax inspections and most of the unscheduled documentary audit of the bodies of the State Tax Service (including documentary remote audit);
- factex post review (in particular on issues of settlement operations, compliance with cash discipline (subitem 80.2.2 of the Tax Code of Ukraine, hereinafter – Tax Code), “undeclared employment”, non-payment of “salary” taxes (subitem 80.2.7 of Tax Code);
- documentary audit of the unified social tax.
At the same time, the moratorium does not apply to:
- desk audit (the range of issues that are the subject of desk audit is very broad and determined by subitems 75.1.1 and 75.1 of Article 75 of the Tax Code, providing as follows:
- desk audit is carried out on the basis of data specified in tax returns (calculations) of the taxpayer and data of the electronic administration of value added tax (hereinafter – VAT) (data of the State Treasury Service of Ukraine, where the payers' accounts in the electronic VAT administration system are opened, data of the Unified register of tax invoices administration system the register of tax invoices (hereinafter – URTI) and the data of customs declarations), as well as the data of the Unified register of excise invoices and data of the electronic administration of the sale of fuel and ethyl alcohol;
- subject of the desk audit may also be the timeliness of filing tax returns (calculations) and/or the timely registration of tax invoices/adjustments calculations to them (hereinafter – TI/AC) in URTI, excise tax invoices and/or adjustment calculations to excise tax invoices in the Unified register of excise tax invoices, correcting errors in tax invoices and/or timely payment of the agreed amount of tax (monetary) liability solely on the basis of data stored (processed) in the relevant information bases);
- unscheduled documentary audit on VAT refunds and/or declaring VAT negative amount in excess of 100,000 UAH (subitem 78.1.8 of the Tax Code). The grounds and time limits for carrying out such audits are stipulated by item 200.11 of the Tax Code, and the decision to carry out the documentary audit must be made no later than the expiry of the deadline for conducting the desk audit (i.e. 30 calendar days).
- inspections on the request of a payer;
- suspension of TI/AC registration – in fact, procedures related to “unlocking” of TI/AC, which registration is suspended, are nothing but classic documentary audit in a simplified format. Nevertheless, the law provides no exceptions for these fiscal instruments;
- counter reconciliations – they are not formally inspecions (item 73.5 of the Tax Code), and therefore the moratorium does not apply to them;
- requests by tax authorities to provide information and copies of documents – also an ideal tool for the controlling authority.
The moratorium does not apply to the inspections completed before March 17, 2020 inclusive. As a result of such inspections, an act (certificate) and tax notices-decisions (hereinafter – TND) are drawn up in a general manner.
The introduction of a moratorium on inspections does not deprive taxpayers of the right to file in accordance with item 86.7 Art. 86 of the Tax Code the objection to the acts of inspections completed prior to the introduction of the moratorium and to challenge the TND adopted following their results. However, taxpayers will not be able to take part in the objection/complaint against the tax notices-decision.
