A request from the IRS. What should to do?

Did you know that under Article 73 of the Tax Code of Ukraine, not every request of the supervisory authority, the taxpayer must give a substantive answer.

Today Vladyslav Holovatyuk, our attorney at law, will clarify the situation for you.

Article 73 of the Tax Code of Ukraine states that such a request shall be signed by the head (his deputy or authorized person) of the supervisory authority and must contain:

1) the grounds for sending the request in accordance with this paragraph, specifying the information that confirms it;

2) The list of information requested and the list of documents that are proposed to be provided;

3) the stamp of the supervisory authority.

Usually, supervisory authorities refer to the fact that:

- The analysis of tax information obtained in accordance with the procedure established by law has revealed facts that may indicate a violation by the taxpayer of tax, currency legislation, legislation in the field of prevention and counteraction to legalization (laundering) of proceeds of crime, financing of terrorism and financing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and other legislation, the control over compliance with which is entrusted to supervisory authorities, with a mandatory indication of such facts in the request;

- Inaccurate data contained in tax declarations submitted by the taxpayer have been identified;

- There is a procedure for periodic submission of information to state tax authorities and receipt of information by these authorities upon written request approved by the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers No. 1245 dd. 27.12.10.

Such grounds give taxpayers the right not to provide explanations and copies of documents because such requests usually

- There is no specific justification and conclusions of the supervisory authority on the violation by the taxpayer of tax or other legislation. There are only references to articles of normative-legal acts.

- There is no reference to the tax information (the content of this information), which have the basis for sending the request;

It is worth noting that Paragraph 14 of Order 1245 does specify the terms for providing a response to requests of the controlling body and obliges the subjects of information relations to provide information, which is in the request of the State Tax Service.

Such obligations arise from the tax payer only if there are the appropriate grounds referred to in paragraph 73.3 of Article 73 of the Tax Code of Ukraine.

Also, if, after checking other taxpayers or as a result of the analysis of tax information revealed the facts, which indicate that there may be violations of tax, currency or other legislation.

Pay attention to the fact that in most cases the requests of controlling authorities do not contain any references to:

- The results of audits of other taxpayers;

- specific facts that indicate possible violations of tax, currency or other legislation by the taxpayer.

Usually just indicates the facts of economic transactions between the company and its counterparties, as well as the presence of "unknown" tax information that levels the reference supervisory authority to paragraph 14 of Order № 1245 and indicates inconsistency with the requirements of legislation.In addition, the taxpayer in this situation should remember that according to paragraph 528 of subsection 10 of section XX "Transitional Provisions" of the Tax Code of Ukraine for the period until the last day of the month in which the quarantine expires, stopped the timing of Articles 73 and 78 of the Tax Code on providing responses by taxpayers to the requests of tax authorities.

Stopped flow of terms provided for this paragraph does not apply only to inquiries about the legality of the declaration of VAT claimed for refund and/or the negative value of VAT.

In fact, in connection with the suspension of the deadline for providing answers to requests, the taxpayers who received written requests from tax authorities during the quarantine period must provide a written answer to such request, but they have time to provide such answer, which is equal to the period from the date of receipt of the request until the last day of the month in which the quarantine ends, plus 15 working days.