Court confirmed legality of adopted tax notifications-decisions

Press service of the State Tax Service of Ukraine, published 11 July 2024 at 09:43 Chapter: News

Cassation court supported the controlling authority’s position regarding legality of adopted tax notifications-decisions, which imposed fines to the payer for carrying out retail fuel sale through electronic control and cash register not specified in license, and for not submitting documents for verification upon written controlling authority’s request.

Cassation court certified that the court of appeal made correct conclusions, justifying at the same time rejecting the claimant's reference regarding his compliance with procedure for making changes to the license, since the licensee's taking appropriate actions regarding making changes to the license for the retail fuel sale does not negate his performance of settlement operations to introduction of changes by the controlling authority in the prescribed manner to annex to the license through RRO, i.e. information about which is missing from the license at the time of control measure.

Rejecting the plaintiff's argumentations about his compliance with procedure for making changes to the license, the court of appeal correctly pointed out that determination by the legislator of procedure and term for making changes to the license does not give the business entity right to carry out licensed activities until relevant changes are made to the license and therefore reasonably concluded that the plaintiff was not entitled to use electronic control and cash register (accounting book of settlement operations), which is not included in the license, for carrying out licensed activity of fuel sale with reference to subsequent entry of such data in annex to the license, because according to norms of Part 2 of Article 17 of the Law of Ukraine № 481/95-VR as of 19.12.1995 "On state regulation of production and circulation of ethyl alcohol, brandy and fruit alcohol, alcoholic beverages, tobacco products, liquids used in electronic cigarettes and fuel" (hereinafter – Law № 481/95-VR) the business entity is not released from responsibility for relevant offense committed within the time limit established by Part 54 of Article 15 of the Law № 481/95-VR.

Also, in response to the tax authority’s written request to provide copies of documents, the plaintiff did not provide documents in full. Making conclusions in this part of dispute, the court of appeal noted that the taxpayer’s right to submit additional documents and explanations together with objections to conclusions of completed tax audit, defined in Paragraph 86.7 Article 86 of the Tax Code of Ukraine (hereinafter – Code), does not release him from obligation to provide officials of the controlling authority in full with all documents belonging to or related to the audit subject specified in Paragraph 85.2 Article 85 of the Code.

Cassation court agrees with this conclusion, since provision of requested documents outside the scope of control measure, together with objections to the audit act, does not refute failure to provide the specified documents within the time limit determined by the tax authority during tax control, for which fines were applied to the plaintiff.

Therefore, Cassation administrative court as a part of the Supreme Court on 27.06.2024 in case № 580/4890/23 dismissed the plaintiff’s cassation appeal and decision of the Sixth appeal administrative court as of 06.02.2024 was left unchanged.