When a business starts complaining about the manual management of the State Tax Service by the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Taxation and Customs Policy, Danylo Hetmantsev, representatives of the State Tax Service come to visit. The tax authorities will have to be held accountable for illegal actions, including those dictated to them from the outside. This opinion was expressed in an exclusive commentary to UNN by Anatoliy Amelin, a member of the Board of The Aspen Institute Kyiv, director of economic programs at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future.
"There are a lot of such statements (about Hetmantsev's manual control of the State Tax Service - ed.), but as soon as the business starts to say something about it, the tax authorities come to them and conditionally ask them not to show their position publicly. Therefore, we can indirectly conclude that yes, there is a serious impact on this organization," Amelin said.
He noted that this is not a normal situation, because the State Tax Service and the Verkhovna Rada are different branches of government, and MPs are representatives of the people, including business. In addition, any manual regulation is a conflict of interest and a major corruption risk.
According to him, Hetmantsev's manual regulation of the State Tax Service is also evidenced by the fact that he has repeatedly published his personal phone number on his social media and suggested that businesses contact him in case of problems with the tax service. "This is wrong, it contradicts the international practice of public service in general... That is, when a deputy uses his personal phone number to say: "call me, I'll solve it", this once again proves his deep immersion in the work of this body, and, accordingly, completely refutes the independence of this body and the objectivity of its work," Amelin said.
However, the expert emphasizes that sooner or later, the State Tax Service employees will have to be held accountable for their illegal actions. "If these actions lead to harm, it will be proven in court, and these actions were dictated by decisions of external stakeholders not from the tax service but from other organizations, then law enforcement officers may even consider it a criminal group intending to take some action, and there are already articles of the Criminal Code. Therefore, if this is proved, it will be a completely different format of consideration and consequences," Amelin emphasized.
At the same time, he added that tax officials are now afraid to speak openly about the facts of influence on them for fear of pressure and job loss. However, Amelin is confident that representatives of the State Tax Service will start talking about the facts of external influence and illegal instructions.
"Everyone here is afraid of pressure from higher authorities, afraid of losing their jobs, so such testimony can only take place when businesses start filing lawsuits, applications to law enforcement agencies, in the course of litigation, in the course of investigation, on the one hand, to the NABU, on the other hand, to other bodies responsible for this type of offense, abuse of power is proven and proved by the investigation, from testimony, involvement of other persons, then a broader picture will be formed. As far as I know, there are already investigative actionsthat describe in detail all the decision-making schemes, including who makes decisions, how they are implemented, with recordings of conversations, meetings, and so on. But this question is not for me, but for those authorities that conduct this type of investigation. The question here is why they stop, why they don't go further, but this is not a question for me," Amelin added.
Recall
President of the All-Ukrainian Professional Association of Entrepreneurs Borys Emeldesh statedthat there is indirect evidence that Hetmantsev is manually running the State Tax Service.
In particular, since May 2022, Yevhen Sokur has been working as the acting deputy head of the State Tax Service of Ukraine. Business representatives and experts believe that he is the man of MP Danylo Hetmantsev, head of the Verkhovna Rada's Finance Committee.
A poll by Sociopolis showed, that Ukrainian entrepreneurs have a positive attitude toward President Volodymyr Zelenskyi, but a significantly negative attitude toward MP Danylo Hetmantsev.
Dmytro Oleksiyenko, a member of the Board of ICC Ukraine and a member of the Board of the Association of Taxpayers of Ukraine, said that the National Revenue Strategy for 2024-30 is the realization of the communist dreams of Danylo Hetmantsev, the head of the Verkhovna Rada's Finance Committee and MP .
In particular, Hetmantsev is behind the idea to abolish banking secrecy. As experts suggest , this is his personal goal.