International experience and priority directions of combating tax evasion, taxes and other mandatory payments in Ukraine

Abstract

Introduction. The paper analyzes the legislation of some foreign countries on liability for crimes in the field of taxation. Purpose. It is established that, in general, developed countries have built reliable systems of measures to ensure tax revenues to the state budget and apply effective mechanisms to prosecute for violating the requirements of tax legislation. Results. It is determined that the legislation of developed foreign countries provides for different types of liability for tax evasion as a consequence of anti-fiscal behavior of the taxpayer: civil, administrative and criminal. The main destabilizing factors affecting the effectiveness of tax control are: insufficient unification of domestic tax legislation with international; lack of comprehensive methods of assessment and systematic monitoring of control and verification work of tax authorities; imperfect methodological support of procedural issues of tax control, low level of its automation; lack of approaches to harmonization of relations between participants of the control and verification process; institutional distortions and distortions regarding the tax culture, discipline and consciousness of taxpayers due to the growth of the tax burden and transaction costs in the system of tax administration. Conclusions. Domestic tax control is characterized by a tendency to converge with European requirements, but the pace of reform of the tax administration system in Ukraine is too slow. It is suggested that to overcome the problem, it is necessary to introduce (for some types of violations) the dependence of the size of financial sanctions on the characteristics of the tax offense, its value in monetary terms, the presence or absence of intent to evade taxation and so on. Finally, abandon the link between the size of financial sanctions and the economically outdated value of the tax-free minimum income; to provide financial responsibility of legal entities for conducting accounting and tax accounting with violations (the current domestic legislation provides insignificant fines for bringing to administrative responsibility only officials of the taxpayer-legal entity).