Court supported the controlling body’s position regarding legality of charging a fine for late registration of tax invoices

Cassation court supported the controlling body’s position regarding legality of made decisions, according to which a fine was applied for late registration of tax invoices in the Unified register of tax invoices.

Cassation court concluded that, taking into account circumstances established by the courts, there are no grounds to believe that the plaintiff's improper fulfillment of tax obligations is caused by circumstances for which the state is responsible. Plaintiff, carrying out his activities in the wired telecommunications sphere since 17.05.2000, could not fail to be aware of specific conditions of its state regulation and should have planned his economic activities taking this into account in order to ensure possibility of properly fulfilling his tax obligations.

For non-fulfillment of obligation established by the state, responsibility introduced by it does not arise only in case that the state has not created conditions for fulfillment of such obligation. By itself, the state's implementation of regulation of economic activity in certain areas cannot be considered as objective circumstance that prevents the taxpayer from properly fulfilling his duties in tax relations.

Therefore, Cassation administrative court as a part of the Supreme Court on 21.03.2024, in case № 280/7271/21 upheld cassation appeal of the Eastern Interregional Department of the State Tax Service for work with large taxpayers; decision of Zaporizhzhia district administrative court as of 06.12.2021 and decision of Third administrative court of appeal as of 02.06.2022 were annulled. New decision was made, which refused to satisfy the claims.