State Fiscal Service officials abuse power at the oblast level

Object of the complaint: State Fiscal Service in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast
Complaint in brief: On June 16, 2015, the complainant addressed the BOC with information about alleged abuse of power by the State Fiscal Service (SFS) in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. 
The complainant said that the local SFS office had abused its powers by forcing taxpayers to use an unofficial website to download a template of a tax reporting agreement. In the complainant’s opinion, this put the taxpayers in an unfair position and granted tax authorities more power to control them. According to legislation, taxpayers are supposed to use the official website, www.sfs.gov.ua, to download documents. 
Actions taken: The BOC investigator addressed the SFS with an official request to stop its malpractice. The BOC also sent a request to the State Fiscal Service to look into the Dnipropetrovsk office’s practices.
Result achieved: The State Fiscal Service examined all the web resources used by regional tax inspections. Unofficial website in Dnipropetrovsk oblast was closed. On August 4, the BOC received an official response from the State Fiscal Service with its position regarding such malpractice. In its letter, the SFS addressed its officials with a demand to use the official website and official internal instructions/orders developed by the Service for receiving and processing electronic documents from taxpayers. The State Fiscal Service also warned that if such malpractice were repeated in the future, the heads of those offices would be held liable for the violation of this procedure