Business Ombudsman Council, New Tax and Customs Services: New Stage of Cooperation

The Business Ombudsman Council signed Memoranda of Partnership with the State Tax Service and the State Customs Service. The Memoranda are intended to continue cooperation at expert group level as well as systemic recommendations implementation and tax and customs authorities reform embedding. 
 
Until now, the Memorandum of Partnership and Cooperation between the State Fiscal Service and the Business Ombudsman Council was in effect for four years. During this time the institution received about 6000 complaints from businesses: 57% of them concerned tax issues and only 4% – customs ones. 
 
The most difficult cases were brought up for expert groups consideration as provided by the Memorandum. The parties exchanged information, voiced their arguments and looked into cases together. These meetings have proven to be an effective interaction tool – as a result, over two-thirds of cases have been successfully resolved. New Memoranda also provide for the establishment of expert groups. Tetiana Korotka, the Deputy Business Ombudsman will be in charge of this area on the part of the Council.
 
The Council issued 43 recommendations on tax and customs systemic issues to government agencies. Presently, only 28% of them have been implemented.
 
“Re-signing Memoranda with new Tax and Customs Services means further cooperation between our institutions. Our common goal is to create a decent business environment in Ukraine, promote Ukrainian businesses development and encourage foreign investments. We hope new tax and customs authorities use our systemic recommendations on tax administration, foreign economic activity regulation and business problems solving in the customs sector in the course of services reform“, – stressed Marcin Święcicki, Business Ombudsman. 
“Today we are starting a new page of our cooperation with the Business Ombudsman Council. Both sides – taxpayers and state bodies – benefit from the professional presentation of business issues by the Business Ombudsman. With a special attention we are focusing on handling complaints presented by the Business Ombudsman Council and aggregated reports on them. These are roadmaps based on the specific cases we are considering online. After all, understanding specific problems of companies that approach the Business Ombudsman Council is a way to understand systemic problems in implementing tax policy and an effective opportunity to find agreed solutions. We have a common goal – to provide favorable conditions for business “, – said the Head of the State Tax Service Serhiy Verlanov.
“The signing of the Memorandum with the Business Ombudsman Council reaffirms our desire to make the same rules of the game for all. The huge number of conflicts that exist in customs legislation leads to smuggling in the country and corruption at customs points. We are very grateful for the comprehensive support from Business Ombudsman Marcin Swiencicki and together with the newly created expert group we will improve the situation at customs,” – commented the Head of the State Customs Service Maksym Nefyodov.
 
We would like to remind that earlier the Business Ombudsman Council signed Memoranda of Cooperation with eight government agencies: the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, the State Regulatory Service, the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, Kyiv City State Administration, the National Police , the National Agency for Prevention of Corruption and the State Security Service of Ukraine.