Yevhen Oleinikov: Establishing an automatic exchange of tax information is a strategic priority

Press service of the State Tax Service of Ukraine, published 22 June 2021 at 09:27 Chapter: News

Steps of Ukraine towards the introduction of automatic exchange of information on financial accounts according to the CRS standard were discussed during the meeting of acting Chairman of the STS Yevhen Oleinikov with leadership and experts of the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes. Representatives of the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine also participated in the meeting.

“Proper establishment of automatic information exchange is one of strategic priorities in work of the State Tax Service and we are committed to achieving progress and the end result in this direction. Much has already been done to achieve this goal. Now we have systematized everything and determined the key areas and tasks that we need to solve to achieve further progress.” – emphasized Yevhen Oleinikov.  

According to him, for successful implementation of the CRS standard, a working group was created and formed, which included representatives of the relevant departments, who will be both senders of such information and users. STS has already taken a number of measures to implement the standard of automatic information exchange, approved indicative action plan for the CRS implementation.

Currently, the STS’s specialists have prepared answers to the questionnaire on confidentiality and protection of information in the STS, sent by experts of the Global Forum to determine its readiness to automatically exchange information in terms of the necessary rules and practices to ensure confidentiality of tax information exchange using appropriate tools.

“STS is interested in continuing to work with the Global Forum to assess and take all further steps necessary to put automatic information exchange process into practice. We are ready for effective work for successful achievement of the result” – specified Yevhen Oleinikov.

Participation of Ukraine in the system of automatic information exchange will allow to receive data on the availability of assets abroad by residents of Ukraine from other participating countries, to determine how these funds got there and whether taxes were paid from them. That is, in fact, we are talking about transparency of financial flows and the state control over completeness of tax payments.

Experts of the Global Forum generally praised readiness of the STS to implement the standard. Particularly, it was noted that as a result of the preliminary analysis conducted by the expert group, it was concluded that the STS has a properly organized information security system and system in the human resources management sphere. Emphasis was also placed on a powerful IT security system. According to experts, this gives grounds to predict Ukraine’s accession to the tax information exchange system already in 2023.

At the same time, there are certain points that the tax authorities still need to refine for a successful outcome. Experts of the Global Forum assured representatives of the STS of further cooperation and technical assistance to obtain a high assessment of readiness to join the system.

Reminder! The Global Forum is a multilateral structure established by a Decision of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2009. The Forum has 162 participants, including all G20 countries, the OECD member countries, international financial centers and developing countries.

This organization is authorized by the G20 countries to promote effective compliance with international standards on the transparency and exchange of information for tax purposes, to unite international efforts to combat tax evasion or the non-payment and illegal financial flows. In addition, the Global Forum provides technical assistance in the implementation of such standards.

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