№ 1/2021

Fìnansi Ukr. 2021 (1): 64–82https://doi.org/10.33763/finukr2021.01.064

TAX POLICY

KOSHCHUK Tetiana ¹

¹SESE “The Academy of Financial Management”
OrcID ID : https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1013-4603

Agreements between tax authorities and taxpayers in the context of EU law on state aid

This article analyses how the application of the EU legislation on state aid has impacted the development of cooperation between tax authorities and taxpayers through the various forms of agreements they enter into. These measures of tax administration may qualify as state aid to business entities only if they meet all the criteria for such aid, namely: they should offer an economic advantage to the beneficiary; they should be granted by the state or through state resources; they should be selective; they should distort competition and have an adverse impact on trade. Furthermore, there are some areas to which the general rules of state aid do not apply. The latter include, among others, the operations of agricultural industries and the actions the state is obliged to take under international treaties. The analysis of the European Commission's approaches and case law has given rise to the following conclusions: 1) the write-off, instalment and deferral arrangements for the tax debt of insolvent economic entities will qualify for state aid only if it is proven that more funds would have made it into the budget had the corresponding agreements not been in place (in particular, if the taxpayer had gone bankrupt); 2) to recognize the consequences of the violation of transfer pricing rules as state aid when entering into advance pricing agreements, it is crucial to unequivocally prove that tax legislation has been violated and prove that, in view of all other opportunities for taxation under the "standard" conditions, the company has in fact paid less taxes; 3) involvement in joint legal compliance programs will not be considered a provision of state aid if the terms of such cooperation provide only procedural benefits to the parties to the agreements, rather than entailing any reduced tax liability for a business entity.

Keywords:cooperation between tax authorities and taxpayers by concluding agreements, state aid, tax liability of the business entity, loss of the budget

JEL: H22, H25, H32, H61

Koshchuk T. . Agreements between tax authorities and taxpayers in the context of EU law on state aid / T. . Koshchuk // Фінанси України. - 2021. - № 1. - C. 64-82.

Article original in Ukrainian (pp. 64 - 82)

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