Duty to pay tax and tax liability: concepts, relationship problems

Abstract

The article deals with the problems of the relationship between the concepts: the duty to pay tax and the tax liability. The obligation to pay taxes has acquired the character of a constitutional obligation, the legal regulation of which is carried out by the provisions of the legislation on taxes and fees. The state is the main subject of tax legal relations, possessing powerful powers in relation to the rest of the participants, actively implementing an arsenal of imperative measures of influence that allow it to determine the nature of the behavior of the latter. The legal norms governing the identification of problems that arise when defining the concepts of the duty to pay tax and tax liability are analyzed. The ambiguity and inconsistency of these norms leads to the emergence of a significant number of tax disputes, in particular court ones.
 The article uses general scientific methods - analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, generalization and comparison, systemic-structural, etc., as well as private-scientific methods - formal- logical, formal-legal, comparative-legal, legal modeling, comparative-historical, and others .
 It was determined that the obligation to pay the tax arises only in the presence of the corresponding object, which follows precisely from the requirements of the law and is conditioned by the public-legal nature of the mandatory payment.
 It has been established that the obligation to pay tax is associated with the taxpayer's performance of a number of tax-procedural actions, such as: registration with the tax authority; keeping records of taxation objects; calculation of taxes, if provided by law; maintaining, compiling, and submitting tax reporting within the established terms; compliance with the tax payment deadline and procedure.
 Regarding the expediency of using the category "tax liability”, it should be noted that the use of the category of tax liability as an independent, different from the civil law term is possible, but in law enforcement practice it will be more appropriate to use the category "obligation to pay tax”.