Digitalization of tax procedures: what was forgotten in the amendments to the Tax Code

Recently, the Parliament agreed on the idea of improving remote communication between regulatory authorities and taxpayers. To this end, the latter are to be given the right to participate in the consideration of their objections and complaints and other applications online.

We are talking about the draft Law No. 9662 of 30.08.2023 «On Amendments to the Tax Code of Ukraine on Improving Online Communication with Taxpayers and Clarifying Certain Provisions of the Law», which the Verkhovna Rada adopted as a basis on January 10.

The authors of the legislative initiative, continuing the trend towards digitalization of tax procedures, consider it important to ensure that taxpayers can use electronic services to facilitate communication with representatives of regulatory authorities without personal presence. The participation of a taxpayer in a videoconference outside the premises of the controlling authority can significantly improve the quality of consideration of complaints or audits with the possibility of hearing the position of the taxpayer or his representative without personal presence.

The UNBA Committee on Customs and Tax Law analyzed its content and noted that the draft law only superficially touches on this issue, and therefore needs to be significantly revised.

In particular, the document should be supplemented with provisions on the procedure for communication between the controlling authority and the taxpayer via video conference. It is necessary to provide for specific rights and obligations of the participants, namely, the ability to present arguments to the entity considering the complaint, provide explanations, submit additional documents, etc.

It is also advisable to provide for the possibility of checking whether the controlling authority has the technical capability to conduct videoconferences, as the tax authorities will be able to refuse to exercise this right at their own discretion.

Among other things, the terminology used should be harmonized with the legislation on electronic communications.

These and other comments and suggestions of the UNBA were sent to the relevant Committee of the Verkhovna Rada on Finance, Taxation and Customs Policy.