Ex-head of the tax department of Khmelnytskyi about the appointment of Sokur’s people in the commission of auditors of the DPS: “Scheme to embezzle large amounts of funds”

Acting Deputy Head of the State Tax Service of Ukraine Yevgeny Sokur appoints his people to the commission of auditors, especially in regions that received foreign funding for the construction of fortifications. This may be related to the creation of a scheme to embezzle large amounts of funds. About it in the interview UNN said Iryna Zlenko, the former head of the Khmelnytskyi tax region.

Commissions have been created in the regions and in the DPS of Ukraine, which are fully under the control of Sokur. They are illegitimate and all the evidence for this has already been collected. A journalistic investigation was conducted, which revealed that the heads of the auditors’ commissions are completely people controlled by Sokur

According to her, in most cases, Sokur’s people were assigned precisely to the regions for which the most funds were allocated by Western partners for the construction of fortifications. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I’m sure it’s a scheme to embezzle large amounts of money,” added Iryna Zlenko.

It is worth noting that such commissions determine whether to accept tax invoices and adjustment calculations from entrepreneurs after they have been blocked by the automated system.

We will remind

Previously, SEO Club analysts, having studied the principles of the SMCOR system, came to the conclusion that the State Tax Service blocks the tax invoices of honest businesses when there are not enough funds to fill the budget. In this way, the state receives an “interest-free loan” from a business without its consent.

Let’s add

Blocking of tax invoices is a tool invented by the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy, Danylo Hetmantsev, and one of the main problems that Ukrainian entrepreneurs complain about in the field of tax administration. In general, as indicated in the statistics of the Business Ombudsman Council, in the third quarter of 2023, 57% of complaints from business representatives related to tax issues. According to People’s Deputy Mykhailo Tsimbalyuk, the blocking of tax invoices has become a serious problem that threatens the national security of Ukraine, as it stops the activities of enterprises and disrupts economic transactions.

As business ombudsman Roman Vashchuk noted, the problem in business is not even the level of taxes, but the style of administration. In addition, he added that 90-94% of tax and customs cases lose in court – either in the first instance or in an appeal to the Supreme Court.

According to experts, this situation with the courts indicates abuse of their powers by tax officials, because the courts overturn these decisions. Some, such as economic analyst Pavlo Sebastianovych, directly call it “schemes”.

Among the main such schemes, he names fictitious exports, registration of fictitious VAT from fictitious companies, export of goods under fictitious documents with fictitious VAT and return of already real VAT, entanglements, blocking of tax invoices, granting the status of a risky enterprise and organization of shadow schemes to remove this status.

Dmytro Oleksienko, a member of the Council of the Association of Taxpayers, believes that the People’s Deputy, head of the Tax Committee of the Verkhovna Rada, Danylo Hetmantsev, is behind such a policy of the administration, because without his knowledge no important decisions are made in the DPS. And he actually manages the tax office through his former assistant Yevgeny Sokur.

At the same time, Hetmantsev himself called his tax activities “parliamentary control”. He also rejected accusations that he was usurping the powers of the executive branch, saying he was simply helping entrepreneurs.