The ESBU declares that transparency and integrity matter to business: aircraft leasing could become a test for the Bureau

The Economic Security Bureau says it is changing its approach to interacting with businesses and that trust in the institution needs to be restored. The Bureau calls predictability and honesty two of the key principles of such interaction. The situation surrounding the taxation of aircraft leasing payments could become a concrete example through which the Bureau demonstrates how these principles work in practice, UNN writes.

Pavlo Buzdyhan, Deputy Director of the ESB, said that the Bureau currently faces the task of restoring the trust of businesses and society in the institution. According to him, the ESB has already begun changing its approach to interacting with entrepreneurs.

We have completely changed the approach to the ESB’s interaction and work with businesses. What did it consist of? We moved from a system and approach based on reactive action to a proactive one. How did we start working? We began analyzing all segments and all markets of the economy comprehensively and resolving issues together with businesses. For us, first and foremost, interaction with businesses is an economic security tool. After all, businesses know the market more deeply; they know exactly the trends taking place within each sector. And they understand precisely which criminal schemes may become dominant. So we began addressing these problems

According to him, businesses initially approached meetings with ESB representatives with distrust, but gradually the two sides began finding common ground for constructive interaction.

Interaction and distrust were among the greatest challenges. Attitudes toward the ESB had always been suspicious. They had always been attitudes that were not geared toward any kind of constructive dialogue. The ESB was treated as an enemy. When we began inviting businesses and organizing conferences and sector-specific meetings with them, we heard: "We have already been to your office, so why do we need this? What will it give us?". Only in the course of communication did it become clear that businesses were genuinely ready to change. They were genuinely ready to improve any processes, but predictability and honesty are very important to them. And at the time when we were doing this—and we continue to do so—we set our first priority as listening to businesses

According to the ESB representative, it was precisely on the basis of this dialogue that the idea of a mechanism for pretrial settlement of tax-related criminal offenses emerged. Pavlo Buzdyhan noted that businesses themselves had expressed readiness to compensate for losses and even pay the fines предусмотрed by law, but did not want to remain in the status of a person involved in criminal proceedings, which could create reputational and compliance risks.

To develop the relevant mechanism, the ESB established a working group that included lawyers, representatives of the Business Ombudsman Council, and business representatives.

The Business Ombudsman Council noted that dialogue with the ESB had become more structured and regular. At the same time, it cautioned against drawing premature conclusions about the practical results of the Bureau’s reset, since the institution’s reform process is still underway.

Institutionally, the dialogue has become more structured and regular. The Council welcomes the ESB’s declared shift away from punitive approaches in its work. The ESB established a working group to develop legislative amendments introducing a mechanism for pretrial settlement in cases involving tax-related criminal offenses; representatives of the Council joined the group. At the same time, the ESB’s reset is still ongoing, so it is currently premature to draw final conclusions about the practical results of these changes

Thus, the ESB’s declared transition to a more open model of interaction with businesses is already reflected institutionally. At the same time, for businesses themselves, the key question remains whether this communication will translate into concrete changes in law enforcement agencies’ approaches.

Aircraft leasing may become a test

The situation involving the taxation of Ukrainian airlines’ leasing payments to nonresidents is illustrative in this context.

As UNN previously reported, since 2024 the Bureau of Economic Security has begun interpreting aircraft leasing transactions with non-residents of Ukraine as the use of equipment. According to investigators, Ukrainian air carriers were required to pay royalties for leasing aircraft and helicopters. Based on this approach, the BES opened criminal proceedings against at least five air carriers, including Ukraine International Airlines (UIA), Constanta Airline, Windrose, H3Operations, and Skyline Express. According to UNN, another airline — Urga — may also be involved in a similar case.

At the same time, representatives of the aviation industry insist that the problem arose because of an ambiguous interpretation of tax legislation and requires a unified state approach. In a response to an inquiry from UNN, the Ministry of Finance reported that the taxation of aircraft leasing transactions is carried out in accordance with the Tax Code and Ukraine’s international treaties. At the same time, the Tax Code of Ukraine does not provide for the taxation of aircraft leasing as royalties. Therefore, the Bureau’s approach to interpreting aircraft leasing without changing the tax legislation is described as pressure that could destroy the entire passenger and freight transportation industry. After all, according to data from the State Register of Civil Aircraft of Ukraine, 86% of the aircraft fleet of Ukrainian companies is leased.

That is why the issue of aircraft leasing was submitted for consideration by the Tax Committee of the Public Council under the Ministry of Finance. Following the first meeting, it was decided to initiate the creation of a working group under the Ministry of Finance, which is to develop a draft general tax consultation on the taxation of lease payments to non-residents.

The future consultation will not mean the automatic termination of liability for transactions carried out in previous years. At the same time, it may be significant for existing disputes, since the very need for such clarification indicates ambiguity in the application of the relevant tax provision. Tax planning expert Olena Kuznechikova previously explained to UNN that a general tax consultation may be used as an additional argument in disputes concerning transactions carried out before its approval.

For airlines, this is fundamentally important: businesses need to understand the rules according to which the state assesses leasing transactions and what specific tax obligations arise from them.

From communication to a specific decision

Thus, the situation with aircraft leasing may become an opportunity for the BES to demonstrate in practice the approach promoted by the Bureau itself.

If predictability and fairness are important to businesses, as the BES claims, it is important that after the competent authority’s position emerges, the state act consistently and state institutions not apply fundamentally different approaches to identical transactions.

In the case of aircraft leasing, such a document should be a general tax consultation by the Ministry of Finance. It may establish a unified approach to the taxation of lease payments and provide the parties with a common legal basis for further action.

For the BES, this is also an opportunity to show that its declared transition from reactive to proactive interaction with businesses means more than holding meetings and open discussions. It involves a willingness to hear business arguments, take into account the positions of competent state bodies, and act in accordance with established legal approaches.

In this case, aircraft leasing itself may become an illustrative situation demonstrating whether the BES’s new model of interaction with businesses can work in practice — where the activities of companies, their reputational risks, and the prospects for preserving an entire industry directly depend on the decisions of law enforcement officers.