Court supported controlling body’s position regarding deadlines for submitting tax reporting

Cassation court supported controlling body’s position regarding legality of adopted decision regarding the possibility of timely fulfillment of tax obligation by the taxpayer in terms of compliance with deadlines for submitting income tax reporting, excise tax, rent for the use of radio frequency resources, as well as submitting financial reporting provided for in Paragraph 46.2 Article 46 Chapter 2 of Section II of the Tax Code of Ukraine.

Courts took into account and noted that in order to exempt payer from fulfilling tax obligations, circumstances of the impossibility of timely fulfillment of tax obligations must be real and objective, and not formal. Taxpayer must provide a comprehensive list of documents that confirm occurrence of circumstances that make it impossible to conduct economic activity and fulfill tax obligations.

The Supreme Court came to the conclusion that issuing disputed decision, the tax authority acted on the basis and in manner provided for by current legislation of Ukraine, therefore there are no legal grounds for satisfying claims, since the plaintiff, neither to the controlling body, nor to the court, did not provide evidence on confirmation that the plaintiff conducted any economic activity at the registration place of legal address, kept documents necessary for conducting economic activity, equipment and/or equipment necessary for conducting activity, etc.

At the same time, courts of previous instances noted and took into account that in order to confirm existence of circumstances that make it impossible to fulfill tax obligation, the plaintiff submitted to the controlling body documents that confirm temporary technical malfunctions. Herewith, the plaintiff in application submitted to the controlling body does not mention the damage, loss, destruction, corruption of accounting documentation, which in turn would make it impossible to fulfill tax obligations of submitting tax declarations.

The claimant's references to justify the impossibility of fulfilling tax obligations for the loss (destruction or deterioration) of primary documents, computer and other equipment as a result of hostilities, terrorist acts caused by military aggression of russian federation, are not supported by adequate evidence, which in the context of disputed legal relations would be documents specified in the List of documents confirming the impossibility of timely fulfillment of tax obligations, approved by Order of the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine № 225 as of 29.07.2022, which clearly states which documents can confirm one or another reason, but none of these documents have been provided to the controlling body.

Cassation administrative court as a part of the Supreme Court on 28.02.2024 in case № 280/6527/22 dismissed the plaintiff's cassation appeal; decision of Zaporizhzhia district administrative court as of 27.02.2023 and decision of the Third appeal administrative court as of 12.06.2023 were left unchanged.