Oleksiy Lyubchenko and the IMF experts discussed recommendations to support STS reforms

Chairman of the State Tax Service of Ukraine Oleksiy Lyubchenko held a working meeting with representatives of the International Monetary Fund, senior economist of the IMF’s Budget Department Enriko Aav and the IMF external experts Tina Tamm and Dave Hartnett. The IMF representatives presented report “Assistance to Tax Administration Reforms” which was prepared based on the results of mission in December 2020 – February 2021.

“We are grateful to our colleagues from the IMF for professional recommendations, specifics and systematic suggestions to improve activity of the State Tax Service. Recommendations in many issues meet our goals and in some we have different views on one problem. However, realizing your potential, we improve our functionality, so the report we receive is important for understanding where we can improve our performance.” – emphasized Oleksiy Lyubchenko.

He particularly noted that these recommendations are based on the best world practices and the State Tax Service has responsible attitude towards the work of foreign colleagues, which allow to improve processes and develop new mechanisms.

In turn, the IMF representatives noted positive in the implementation of tax compliance and increasing level of the taxpayers’ trust towards the State Tax Service over the past year.

One of the discussion topics was a service reform of large business, which is now, depending on the sectoral competence, enshrined in the Interregional Departments of the State Tax Service for work with Large Taxpayers. According to the IMF experts, such system of work with big business is unique and interesting.

“As of today, the State Tax Service has a single policy, the same requirements for all territorial bodies. There is a clear compliance mechanism from business registration to the risk tracking system and the end result, namely payment to the budget. At the same time, the entire compliance strategy for both main directorates and interregional departments for work with large taxpayers is determined at the central level.” – specified Oleksiy Lyubchenko.

He also noted that the IMF’s suggestion to segment the taxpayer base by type and size is interesting, which will allow the State Tax Service to develop services accordingly in order to maximize revenues and combat non-compliance with tax legislation.

Among other things, the IMF experts suggested to publish the Audit Charter so that business representatives know what to expect during the audit, to introduce practice of annual sample audits in their audit program and so on.

All recommendations set out in the IMF report will be carefully worked out by the tax specialists for consideration in further work.

Communicate with the State Tax Service remotely using the “InfoTAX” service