At second attempt: the company gets registered as VAT payer 

Subject of complaint: Local Tax Office of Shevchenkivskyi District of the Main Department of the General Directorate of the SFS in Kyiv (LTO) 
Complaint in brief: An architectural company approached the Council. The tax authority refused to register the Complainant as a taxpayer for formal reasons. 
In late 2018, the Complainant decided to do business and registered the company. As a supplement to an application for state registration, it applied for voluntary VAT payer registration staring from January 1, 2019 According to the recent reforms aimed at simplification of start of business, it could do so without physically visiting the LTO. 
But on January 11, when the Complainant addressed the LTO to get an extract from the register, it learned that he was refused to be registered. The reason was an allegedly incorrectly completed application form. As explained by the inspector who refused to register, in the application the numbers in the sentence “Paragraph one of clause 182.1 of Article 182 of Section V of the Code” were not written in words, but simply in numbers “182.1” as the answer to the application form question. 
The Complainant tried to tell inspectors about excessive formalism and lack of legal grounds for refusal to register, but the quarrel did not finish positively. The Complainant was informed it could get a VAT registration no earlier than February 1 (that did not meet its business interests). Attempts to get an appointment with the LTO head failed. Outraged by the groundless tax authority refusal the Complainant turned to the Council. 
Actions taken: The investigator studied the company’s documents and upheld its position. He found there were no real grounds for the tax authority to refuse the registration. In addition, in the event of refusal, the Complainant had to be duly informed thereof. The Council officially started the investigation, and the investigator was going to participate in the SFS decision administrative appeal. 
 
Result achieved: However, the Complainant decided not to initiate an administrative appeal procedure. After the Complainant still managed to discuss the situation with the top management of the corresponding SFS authorities and was assured it was a bitter misunderstanding, it chilled out and submitted documents again. The Complainant was registered as the VAT payer starting from January 17, 2019, that was generally acceptable for its business interests. The case was closed.