Un-shadowing through the dialogue: first results in the jewelry market

Press service of the State Tax Service of Ukraine, published 08 April 2026 at 11:53 Chapter: News

Dialogue between the State Tax Service and jewelry market participants has yielded results. Two jewelry store chains have already declared their readiness to abandon crushing.

This was announced on the Facebook page by acting Head of the State Tax Service Lesya Karnaukh following the meeting with representatives of these networks.

She recalled that in early March, the State Tax Service had a wide-ranging meeting with representatives of this sector.

“A month has passed. Open dialogue is yielding results. Some market participants have already taken the first steps. We met with representatives of two large chains of jewelry stores. During audits, they found signs of minimizing tax liabilities due to business fragmentation. In particular, at least 100 individuals-entrepreneurs operating under the simplified taxation system are operating in 253 stores at the same time” – she noted.

In fact, there are all the signs of a single business – common infrastructure, suppliers, personnel, same prices and brands. These networks have repeatedly come into the view of tax authorities. During 2025 – 2026, the State Tax Service conducted more than 50 actual audits, identified violations and fines amounted to almost 70 million UAH. Typical violations: product sale without use of RRO/PRRO; improper accounting of inventories; use of unregistered hired labor; making payments using non-cash forms of payment (gift certificates) by the single tax payers.

There are also risks of paying salaries in the “envelopes”. According to documents, they pay 8 – 9 thousand UAH, while in the vacancy announcements they are looking for specialists for 20 – 40 thousand UAH.

“We see tax minimization schemes. But our task is not simply to record them. Through dialogue, we give business opportunity to voluntarily change their approaches to work. We agreed that these networks will refuse fragmentation, will work through a single legal entity – the VAT payer, will regulate salary questions and fiscalize all settlement transactions. We are consistently moving towards tax compliance model, where the priority is to prevent violations. In case of ignoring agreements, our reaction will be appropriate” – Lesya Karnaukh added.

She expressed hope that other representatives of the jewelry market will also increase un-shadowing measures.