Business unions propose moratorium on additional charge of tax, fines

<p> MINSK, May 13 - PrimePress. The Republican Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RUIE) and the Belarusian Scientific and Industrial Association (BSIA) propose introducing a moratorium on the current practice of charging additional tax amounts and penalties when applying Article 33.4 of the Tax Code (TC), which contains several grounds for adjusting the tax base and tax amounts. </p> <p>   </p> <p> These proposals are spelt in a letter from the business unions sent to the Presidential Administration, the Council of Ministers, the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court, the RUIE said in a press release. </p> <p>   </p> <p> The business unions substantiate their appeal with detailed real cases involving the retroactive application of Article 33.4 of the Tax Code. </p> <p>   </p> <p> Earlier, the Supreme Court sent to the country’s economic courts a message to clarify certain issues of application of paragraph 4 of Article 33 of the Tax Code of Belarus. “Unfortunately, these explanations of the Supreme Court and their use by controlling and law enforcement bodies, as well as by the courts, have not alleviated the problem of applying paragraph 4 of Article 33 of the TC to the relations on the calculation and payment of taxes committed by economic entities before 1 January 2019,” reads the appeal. </p> <p>   </p> <p> “When supervisory authorities conduct an audit of economic entities for periods prior to January 1, 2019, according to the rules set forth by Clause 4, Article 33 of the TC, in force as of January 1, 2019, they take decisions, which result in substantial amounts of additional taxes and penalties withdrawn to the budget. This leads to liquidation of economic entities, dismissal of employees and other negative consequences for the economy and social sphere. At the same time, taxes previously paid by business entities are not taken into account when determining the amount of additional taxes and penalties,” the statement said. </p> <p>   </p> <p> This issue was also discussed at the Tax Ministry. The management of the ministry pointed out to representatives of the business community “that the application of Clause 4 of Article 33 of the Tax Code showed an increase in the level of bad faith in business, the measures applied to business entities are liability measures and do not allow for the amounts of taxes previously paid by business entities to be taken into account in calculating amounts of underpaid taxes”. </p> <p>   </p> <p> In this connection, business unions point out that the Tax Ministry did not take into account the well-known practice of applying similar provisions of the Russian Tax Code in Russia, according to which, when imposing additional tax charges based on the results of audits using such provisions, the controlling authority must calculate the additional tax amount taking into account the amounts of taxes which the payer has already paid to the budget for its activities, despite the fact that the payment to the budget may have been in the form of another tax. </p> <p>   </p> <p> Business unions propose to decide on a moratorium on the current practice of additional tax assessments and penalties in the application of Article 33.4 of the TC until the problem is resolved by an appropriate legal act. Business representatives believe that the Supreme Court should analyse the practice of the courts in cases involving the application of Article 33.4 of the TC (economic, administrative offence cases, criminal cases) and, based on the results of the analysis, adopt a relevant decision of the Plenum of the Supreme Court or recommendations to resolve the problem in another legal act. </p> <p>   </p> <p> The business associations also believe that the Constitutional Court should reconsider its decision of 22 December 2018 in view of the incompleteness and uncertainty of the provisions of Article 33(4) of the TC in law enforcement practice. End </p>

2021-05-14

Primepress