TAX ELECTRONIC CHECKS

This week the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on the initiative of the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine approved at a government meeting the next changes to the Tax Code and the Law of Ukraine "On accounting and financial reporting in Ukraine" dated July 16, 1999. Such changes are aimed at introducing a new mechanism of tax control by state bodies - electronic audit or electronic checks.

And although the draft amendments to the legislation are not very voluminous, this will entail consequences for business, in particular for the process and features of accounting.

Based on the analysis of the text of the changes, it is planned that the business must submit the standard audit file SAF-T within 60 calendar days that follow after the end of the reporting calendar year, that is, roughly before March 1. What is this SAF-T (Standard Audit File - Tax) audit file? It means a standardized format for taxpayers to provide accounting and financial information in electronic form to the tax authorities, containing reliable data exported from the original accounting system on the availability and condition of assets, equity capital and liabilities, as well as changes in the financial and economic status of the taxpayer for the reporting (tax ) year.

Such a file is easy for tax authorities to use as it is needed to carry out financial control measures using special software. That is, we see that total informatization and automation is used not only by business to simplify the conduct of economic activities, but also by the state in terms of tax administration.

Ukraine is not the first country in the world to want to introduce electronic audit tools. Moreover, such mechanisms already exist. It was first implemented by Portugal, and later by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

For the tax authorities, such a mechanism has the following advantages:

• reducing the costs of the tax service due to automation;
• checks will become faster and more efficient;
• the quality of data reading is improved;
• the procedure for collecting financial data is simplified.

It is believed that the introduction of such an audit will reduce the number of requests from tax authorities to provide copies of documents, including primary ones. But whether it will be so, only practice will show. What we know for sure is that business again needs to prepare for the new rules of the game with the tax service. In addition, the bill still has to go through a vote in parliament and the relevant committee.

On a note, such an obligation is being introduced for large taxpayers only from 2025, and for VAT payers from 2027, so there is time to prepare and put the accounting in order.

Well, in this you will be helped by the Prikhodko & Partners Law Firm, which knows accounting subtleties and knows how to perform task assignment with high quality. The accounting department of our company will be happy to help you, contact us and forget about financial problems.