Tax ombudsman wanted

The Association of Taxpayers summed up on November 24 results of its initiative to build partnership with the State Tax Service. It seems that contacts are being established, with both sides genuinely interested.

For the association’s president Valentyna Arbuzova, this initiative has become first chance ever to demonstrate her potential to the public. Opening the discussion, she said: “We understand that there are different ways to influence the government, from constructive dialogue to mass protests. We consider the first way to be more promising and effective. However, some members of the business community and the public favor the second way, believing it to be the easiest and most effective one. When we call for dialogue and cooperation, we are absolutely convinced that this method of influencing the government is really civilized.” At the same time, Arbuzova reminded the authorities that the dialogue with the public was only possible with the participation of both sides which should be mutually desirous to find equally acceptable solutions.

The conference also revealed another newcomer, the nation’s chief tax collector, who is little-known to the public as of yet. Oleksandr Klymenko said that Ukraine was creating “the mechanism of positions coordination and looking for compromise.” According to him, the government has already achieved 96 percent voluntary tax payment rate, made possible by high information activity of the State Tax Service. Klymenko said that “practice has shown that Ukraine has the basis for the formation of European taxation culture. Our work with taxpayers indicates that all sides are ready for dialogue.” He told the conference that the modernized service had joined its efforts with the Civil Society Institute, and public supervisory boards had been established with his service’s bodies.

However, according to Klymenko, “the point is that we meet with citizens not just to have some chat and then go away. When I speak about our joint work, I mean the productive activity that can be measured by concrete results,” the tax service chairman stressed. “In particular, we were able to move the discussion from the street to the negotiating table. More than 170,000 people have left the ‘shadow economy,’ we have introduced the draft online consultation for taxpayers. Over the second half of the year only, 90 public meetings were held to fight the ‘shadow employment’ through joint efforts.”

Vice president of the association Oleksandr Shlapak told The Day that his organization, which has been freshly modernized, aimed to eliminate existing conflicts over taxation in the society: “We have already signed with the tax service a very good, in my opinion, memorandum of cooperation. Both sides are well-represented at other side’s offices, in the center and in the provinces alike. I travelled through almost half the country, spoke to our local leaders and left convinced that we truly had the dialogue intensified strongly, and, very importantly, doors of the tax service had been opened for members of the association. We have created reconciliation commissions to deal with specific issues. We are working now on general comments to the Tax Code that we had collected in the regions. Now there are 70 of them, and we already have found common ground with the relevant parliamentary committee on which ones should be supported.”

Meanwhile, the conference participants still see a lot of problems in relations between the business community and the tax service. Was not it the reason why the proposal to establish in Ukraine the tax ombudsman position, following Georgian example, had gained such a strong support?