During 2016 the State Fiscal Service was actively working on fulfillment of commitments, undertaken by Ukraine in the field of European integration. As a result – we have achieved deeper cooperation with international organizations, tax and customs authorities of foreign countries including international financial and technical support. It means implementation of the European experience in our work and implementation of European laws.
I want to draw attention to international projects in which we participate.
So, experts of the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine together with the colleagues from Germany, Poland and Lithuania have started a two-year joint project TWINNING to develop integrated border management.
Also as a part of the EU technical support on border management using the TAIEX instrument, EU specialists held training for customs officers of SFS to exchange European experience with them.
We were actively working with the mission of the European Commission led by Mr. Andrew Tesoriere. It is necessary to mention the project “EVAL 2016” of monitoring and evaluation of customs control in the Ukrainian-Moldovan border, and cooperation with the Director-General of the Directorate-General of Taxation and Customs Union (TAXUD) Mr. Stephen Quest and the Director-General of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) Mr. Giovanni Kessler. We also work on implementation of the Ukraine – European Union Association Agreement.
In addition to supporting our partners in the EU, we have a great support from the U.S. government and our colleagues in that country. I am very pleased that we were able to achieve a high level of cooperation with the American side. An important step to develop customs area was signing of the Agreement between the Government of Ukraine and the Government of the United States on mutual support between customs administrations. Together with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske I have signed this Agreement on May, 2016. The document proved strengthening of U.S.-Ukraine cooperation toward border security and exchange of customs information. Also American experts from the US Treasury Department during the year conducted seminars to exchange experience. They applied to support of large taxpayers, audit, transfer pricing and international taxation, corruption, development of IT projects.
Beside this, we carry out cooperation with the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine – I mean work on the implementation of the 7th stage of the project “Technical assistance to strengthen Ukraine’s export control system and countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction”. The main instrument of this project was purchase and delivery of equipment to improve our capacity for such control.
I want to mention about the presidency of the Intra-European Organization of Tax Administrations (IOTA). What does it give to Ukraine?
Firstly, this is recognition of our successful reforms in the tax area. Secondly, this is increase of reputation of the SFS at the European level. In June 2017, 21st General Assembly of IOTA will be held in Kyiv. Theme of the Assembly will be “Disruptive Trends and New Business Models: Challenges and Implications for the 21st century Tax Administration”.
Some important steps have been taken also in the customs area. In cooperation with the World Customs Organization, we have established the Regional Dog Training Centre in Khmelnytskyi. Dogs from this Center provide invaluable help to the customs staff to detect smuggled goods, such as cigarettes, weapons, drugs and so on.
Among other organizations, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) also takes an important place. As a member of OECD Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes, Ukraine was committed to implement international standards of transparency and automatic exchange of information. Exchange of information between the tax authorities in the context of globalization is our main task. Also as part of the OECD activity, our staff continued their trainings in Budapest, Vienna and Ankara.
We actively worked with the IMF in the framework of two missions of IMF experts, studied the problems of tax administration, and two missions of customs issues. Short-term mission of EU experts worked with our specialists on institutional reform, harmonization of tax bases and other issues.
Actually, it is difficult to focus on all aspects of our activities, because there are too many of them. Here development of the contractual base and strengthening of contacts with representative offices in Ukraine. We are ready to use successful experience of our foreign partners and support to complete radical reform of fiscal and customs administration and accelerate Ukraine’s integration into the team of developed countries.
