MP: State Tax Service blocked tax invoices worth UAH 4.5 billion in July

In July alone, tax authorities blocked tax invoices worth UAH 4.5 billion, which is 10% more than in June. This resulted in unnecessary time, effort and resources being spent by business representatives. In the end, entrepreneurs were able to unblock documents worth almost UAH 4 billion. This was reported by Nina Yuzhanina, a member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Taxation and Customs Policy, UNN reports.

"Regarding the blocking of TI/CC (tax invoices/adjustment calculations - ed.). In  July, 23 thousand taxpayers (15% of those who submitted TI/CC for registration) blocked 262 thousand TI/CC for the amount of VAT of UAH 4.5 billion, which is an increase compared to June:

-           the number of payers increased by 8%;

-          the number of blocked TI/CCs is increased by 10%,

-          the amount of VAT is  by 3%," Yuzhanina said in her Telegram channel.

According to her, 19 thousand taxpayers submitted copies of documents to unblock 200 thousand tax invoices (+31% compared to June) worth UAH 3.9 billion. Yuzhanina clarified that 17 thousand taxpayers were registered 170 thousand tax invoices and adjustment calculations (+13% compared to June) worth UAH 3 billion based on the decisions of the State Tax Service commissions  .

In addition, according to the MP, after the taxpayer was removed from the list of risky taxpayers, 89 thousand suspended tax documents worth UAH 316 million from 259 taxpayers were automatically registered in July. According to the court decision, in July, 4,146  tax invoices and adjustment calculations worth UAH 615 million were registered for  577  taxpayers  .

"In total, 1.4 million tax invoices and adjustment calculations were blocked in 7 months of 2024, of which 1 million TI/CC (71%) were later unblocked by the tax authorities, which means that on average 18 thousand taxpayers spent their time and resources every month to prove to the tax authorities the right to register TI/CC," Yuzhanina summarized.

Recall

[In June, UNN reported that a new wave of blocking tax invoices, a tool invented by the head of the parliamentary tax committee, Danylo Hetmantsev, had begun to increase pressure on business.

Blocking of tax invoices is 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  , 57% of complaints from business representatives in the third quarter of 2023 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.

As business ombudsman Roman Vashchuk noted , the problem for business is not even the level of taxes, but the style of administration. He also added that tax and customs lose 90-94% of their cases in courts, either in the first instance or on appeal to the Supreme Court.

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 actually runs 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.