The acting deputy head of the State Tax Service of Ukraine, Yevhen Sokur, appoints his own people to audit commissions, especially in regions that received foreign funding for the construction of fortifications. This may be related to the creation of a scheme to embezzle funds on a large scale. Iryna Zlenko, the former head of the Khmelnytsky Oblast Tax Service, told UNN in an interview .
Commissions have been set up in the regions and in the State Tax Service of Ukraine, which are fully controlled by Sokur. They are illegitimate, and all the evidence has been collected. A journalistic investigation revealed that the heads of the audit commissions are entirely people controlled by Sokur
According to her, in most cases, Sokur's people were appointed to the regions for which Western partners allocated the most funds for the construction of fortifications. “I don't think it's a coincidence. I am sure that this is a scheme to embezzle funds on a large scale,” added Iryna Zlenko.
It is worth noting that such commissions determine whether to accept tax invoices and adjustment calculations from entrepreneurs after they have been blocked by the automated system.
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Earlier, analysts of the CEO Club, having studied the principles of the PCIS system, came to the conclusion that the State Tax Service blocks tax invoices of honest businesses when there is not enough money to fill the budget. Thus, the state receives an “interest-free loan” from business without its consent.
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The blocking of tax invoices is a tool invented by Danylo Hetmantsev, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Taxation and Customs Policy, and one of the main problems that Ukrainian entrepreneurs complain about in the field of tax administration. In general, according to the Business Ombudsman Council's statistics , in the third quarter of 2023, 57% of complaints from business representatives concerned tax issues. According to MP Mykhailo Tsymbalyuk, the blocking of tax invoices has become a serious problem that threatens Ukraine's national security, as it stops the activities of enterprises and disrupts economic operations.
According to experts, this situation with the courts indicates that the tax authorities are abusing their powers, as the courts are breaking down these decisions. Some, such as economic analyst Pavlo Sebastianovych, directly calls these “schemes”.
Among the main such schemes, he names fictitious exports, registration of fictitious VAT from fictitious companies, export of goods under fictitious documents with fictitious VAT and refund of real VAT, twists, blocking tax invoices, granting risky status to an enterprise and organizing shadow schemes to remove this status.
Dmytro Oleksiyenko, a member of the Taxpayers Association Board, believes that MP Danylo Hetmantsev, chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Tax Committee, is behind this administration policy, because no important decisions are made at the State Tax Service without his knowledge. And he is actually managing the tax office through his former assistant Yevhen Sokur.
At the same time, Mr. Hetmantsev called his activities in relation to the tax service “parliamentary control.” He also rejected accusations that he was taking over the powers of the executive branch, saying that he was simply helping entrepreneurs.