Since February 24, 2022, due to temporary occupation of the city of Melitopol, a flour producing enterprise has lost access to its assets and source documents, as well as access to its bank account. Due to such circumstances, the enterprise operation was actually suspended.
The company sent an application to the tax authority in the Zaporizhzhia region on inability to fulfill its tax obligations and received a decision confirming this fact.
In the spring of 2023, the company decided to resume its economic activity and for this purpose it found premises in Kyiv Oblast and relocated. The company managed to resume its operations only in June 2023.
Meanwhile, once the entreprise resumed its activities, it learned that its registration as a VAT payer had been cancelled. As it turned out, the tax authority canceled the company’s VAT registration at a new location due to the fact that the company had submitted tax returns that showed no business transactions for twelve consecutive months.
The company lodged a complaint with the State Tax Service of Ukraine (STS of Ukraine) and also appealed to the Business Ombudsman Council.
While working on the complaint, the Council sent a letter to the STS of Ukraine and upheld the company’s position, emphasizing that the tax authority had confirmed the company was unable to fulfill its tax obligations, as well as no VAT-taxable transactions was due to the forced cessation of economic activity for reasons beyond the company’s control (military actions and temporary occupation of Melitopol city).
As a result of the Council’s communication with the STS of Ukraine, the company’s VAT payer registration was restored.
