Economic Sciences / 7. Accounting and Audit

 

Ph.D. in Economics Ivanova Lyudmyla Borysivna

Postdoctoral student, Kyiv National Economic University by Vadym Hetman,  Ukraine

Restructuring of tax debts in crisis management of debtor entity in the context of changes to the Tax Code of Ukraine

Tax legislation is one of important components of regulation of processes of instalment, deferment and debt relief of subjects of real economy. In bankruptcy proceedings, such measures are carried out under the settlement agreement. The procedure of settlement agreement, which must be healthful of a financial nature, according to the Law on Bankruptcy involves an agreement between the debtor and creditors regarding deferral and (or) instalments and debt relief (cancellation) of debtor’s debts by creditors. In many bankruptcy proceedings a tax collection department is associated as primary lender, and there are questions regarding the restructuring of tax debt and regulatory support of displaying it in accounting.

Settlement Agreement is governed by a number of regulations. With the implementation of the Tax Code of Ukraine certain legislative acts were repealed, and a number of legislation was changed. Additions and adjustments were made to some regulations as concerns to the Law on Bankruptcy. The Law of Ukraine of 21.12.2000, ¹ 2181-III «On the repayment obligations of taxpayers to budgets and state trust funds (the Law ¹ 2181-III) was repealed. At present the basic fundamentals, theoretical and practical framework for the taxpayers' repayment obligations to the budget are the regulations of the Tax Code Chapter 9 "The Repayment of taxpayers Debt." A number of provisions and procedures in force of 01.01. 2011, governing deferral, instalments and debt relief of general nature (it does not apply to bankruptcy proceedings) were created and approved to these regulations.

However, on the basis of the Law ¹ 2181-III (which was repealed) the provisions that have been created with the specifics of crisis management of debtor entity continue to apply. General procedure of debt restructuring has significant differences compared with procedure in bankruptcy. [2] Therefore, a number of questions do not have full interpretation, or they are contradictory and unclear. For example, a list of taxes and fees which are due to instalments (deferral) and debt relief isn’t provided. A regulation when a time period is defined during which financial penalties are not accrued became inoperative. Also, there is a lack of updated documents which clearly define conditions and a form for deferral (instalment) of tax debt in crisis management. On this basis we can conclude that the regulatory support of accounting concerning to restructuring of debts does not meet such important principle as complexity.

With a number of changes to the TCU and the Law on Bankruptcy the situation with a lack of integrity on the regulatory framework of accounting became worse. Since 2013 the Law of Ukraine "On amendments to the Law of Ukraine " On restoring the debtor's solvency or bankruptcy» ¹ 4212-VI of December 22, 2011 (the Law ¹ 4212-VI), which regulate not only court procedures of bankruptcy and pre-court rehabilitation measures, including measures of financial debt restructuring on their own stage – signing the settlement agreement. In this case it is not clear what rules will control debt restructuring in the rehabilitation of pre-court procedures: including the Law ¹ 4212 or rules laid in the regulations to TCU.

Moreover, recently created deferral (instalment) procedure of monetary obligations (tax debt) of taxpayers’ ¹ 1036 of 24.12.2010 to regulations of the TCU was changed. Instead, deferral (instalment) procedure of monetary obligations (tax debt) of general taxpayers confirmed by the Instruction ¹ 1261 of the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine of 11.30.2012 (the Procedure ¹ 1261), which correlates closely with the regulations of the CMU of December 27, 2010 ¹ 1235 "On approval of the list of circumstances (the Resolution ¹ 1235), indicating the presence or threat of tax debt accumulation, and evidence for the existence of such circumstances" was adopted. According to this list, a number of subjects of debtor while in pre-court rehabilitation have a right for restructuring tax debts, but controversially, whether they can rely on preferential order peculiar to bankruptcy on such grounds as: free of charge, unlimited terms, and unlimited sums of transaction or not.

Debt relief (cancellation) of general nature occurs only if the disaster. In bankruptcy the debt relief is: under liquidation proceedings without involving an assignee of debt, in a certain bankruptcy proceeding – the settlement according to the terms of outstanding debt. The term is either more three than years or, three years to applying for the bankruptcy proceedings. In other words, we are talking about writing off bad debt. In current activities of the enterprise during the bankruptcy proceedings debt may appear which cancellation is regulated by the "Procedure of debt relief (cancellation) and instalment (deferred) by the State Tax Service of taxpayers’ tax debt on the basis of a settlement agreement in bankruptcy case and tax clarification of regulations of this procedure" of November 21, 2000 ¹ 600 (the Procedure of 600). However, as the result of regulations represented in later letters of tax authorities, he puts in question. This procedure of regulatory support of accounting restructuring and debt relief discourages of solvency restoration of the debtor entity of real economy.

LITERATURE:

1. The Law of Ukraine "On amendments to the Law of Ukraine" On restoring the debtor's solvency or Bankruptcy» ¹ 4212-VI of December 22, 2011 [electronic resource]: According to the website / The Parliament of Ukraine – Mode of access: http://zakon. rada.gov.ua / cgi-bin / laws / main.cgi? nreg = 2343-12

2. Ivanova L.B. Regulatory support in accounting of subjects of real economy in bankruptcy proceedings – settlement agreement [coll. of scientific works] / L.B. Ivanova. – K. KNEU, 2012. – Publ. 27. P. 416-428

3. The Instruction of the SAT of November 21, 2000 ¹ 600 on the approval of the "Procedure of the State Tax Service of debt relief (cancellation) and installment (deferred) of taxpayers debt on the basis of a settlement agreement in bankruptcy proceeding" / Liquidation: procedure and accounting [Text ]: a collection of systematic legal system / comp. O.B. Kushyna, I.O.Lvova – K. Blitz-Inform, 2009. – Publ. 3 – P. 147.

4. Tax Code of Ukraine of December 2, 2010 ¹ 2755- VI [electronic resource]: according to the website STSU – Mode of access: http://www.sta.gov.ua/control/uk /publish/article?art_ id = 300560 & catid = 46733