The government should audit the SICC, - NSDC decision

The National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) welcomes the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC) "On Urgent Measures to Ensure Economic Security for the Period of Martial Law". By this decision, the NSDC, among other things, instructed the Cabinet of Ministers to audit the system of monitoring risks and criteria for blocking tax invoices and procedures and criteria for unblocking them.

Back in December 2023, the NACP reported a problem with the tax invoice registration procedure. At that time, the NACP team presented its own research as a comprehensive solution to the issue, developed jointly with MPs, representatives of the business community, the Business Ombudsman Council, the Union of Ukrainian Entrepreneurs, BRDO, the Ukrainian Business Council, the Economic Expert Platform, judges, members of specialized NGOs, etc.

The National Agency has sent recommendations based on the results of the study to the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Taxation and Customs Policy, the Ministry of Finance, the State Tax Service of Ukraine and the Ministry of Economy and emphasizes the need to introduce effective anti-corruption safeguards in this area.

The study identified a number of corruption risks. These include:

• non-transparent operation of the system of automated monitoring of compliance of tax invoices/adjustment calculations with the risk assessment criteria (AMCS) in favor of the "manual mode" of regulation
• unjustified suspension of tax invoice registration;
• failure to take into account the VAT payer's data tables.

Following a broad discussion with business and government representatives, joint recommendations were developed, in particular, for the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine:

• to analyze the effectiveness of the PCIS for the period of 2017-2023 and to publish such results;
• to consider involving the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine in the analysis of the effectiveness of the IASC, in particular for the reengineering of business processes;
• based on the results of the analysis, to propose ways to solve the identified problems in the activities of the DISCO.

We hope that in conducting this audit, the Cabinet of Ministers will take into account the identified corruption risks and recommendations of the NACP provided in the study, and the State Tax Service will ensure the proper implementation of the recommendations provided.