When there were still real bandits at the start of the business, you could ask them for a discount or an installment plan. You can never do this with inspectors. They have one answer: “I won’t bring anything from my stash to the authorities for you. Pay now and in cash."
More memories of business in Ukraine.
“Having taken vodka and sausage from the enemy, do not waste a cartridge on a control shot. Anyway, he will soon die from radiation” V. Pelevin
Another tax audit. There are already hundreds of checks. From the first hundred in 30 years in private business, or from the second hundred, I don’t remember. The inspectors came with a “plan” and said so right away. I am calm because I am sure that the papers are in order.
So we couldn’t find anything real. But! There has always been “murky” taxation in the transportation of transit goods through Ukraine. Over the course of a month, inspections add millions of hryvnias to their previous Act. Reason: VAT at a rate of zero or no VAT at all - a serious difference in the “interpretation of the provisions of the Tax Code and the Transit Law.
Immediately millions of fines to the Act! They verbally formulate their conclusions on the Verification Act in these millions: “We understand that you will go to court. You will be suing for 5 years. You will most likely win the trial. But in 5 years, with our “Inspection Act” and the next “Decision” with millions in fines, we will “rape” you. The tax cops will do this based on our tip. That is, in plain text: “Look for the exit everyone needs!”
This is what a boy says, a tax inspector who is undergoing an audit for the first time. I came based on a tip about a specific discrepancy in the Code, which is visible in the accounting records of any transport company. I consult with the team: “Should I go to court or work? To be raped or to relax and have “pleasure”?”?
I ask the boy an intermediate question: “I can “solve” it with you, I can with your leadership, I can with the regional one. Now write a clean act and tell me with whom you need to “decide” in your “almshouse.” After some time, he answered: “with the region.” It's disgusting, disgusting, but there's nowhere to go. We agreed and decided. Subsequently, this boy brings a clean inspection report. Apparently, we agreed.
I speak:
- Ok, I signed the Act, get out, I don’t want to see you here anymore.
He doesn't leave! He beats me:
- And I need to give it too. Give me at least something “for my work.”
- Wait, I “solved the issue” the way you said. That is, in the region. They will give it to you there.
- But I sign the act. I need it too, “for my signature.” They won't let me there.
He didn’t leave for two hours, persuading me. I stood strong, there was simply no more money for them, these worms, in my budget. The boy inspector left very dissatisfied. Until next time, apparently.
I know from experience that up to 50% of the time in “business in Ukrainian” you are not engaged in what exactly you “bring” to the market of services, not in creating the quality of work and relationships with clients, but in creating conditions to save at least something from your earnings. For the team, family, for development. Otherwise, the inspectors will scoop everything up and take away the last thing without doubt or regret.
When there were still real bandits at the start of the business, you could ask them for a discount or an installment plan. You can never do this with inspectors. They have one answer: “I won’t bring anything from my stash to the authorities for you. Pay now and in cash."
When businessmen stood on the Maidan, supporting the protesters both personally and financially, there was great hope for changes not only in power, but also in the system of relations between government and business, which was introduced by the then moron geologist Azarov.
It is this pathological hater of any business that is still finishing off Ukrainian entrepreneurship with his 500-page Tax Code and another 1000-page comments to it. The complexity and discrepancies in which create 100% of the problems for real small and medium-sized businesses in Ukraine.
For all the damage to Ukraine that this bureaucrat caused after the Maidan, he has already received a dozen suspicions, and for his activities as the chief tax officer and for the introduction of a truly Horde tax system, he is still “clean.” By the way, I checked who else was the co-author of Azarov’s “tax masterpiece,” that is, 1000 page comments on the Tax Code.
Quite expectedly, another Ukrainian “tax luminary” appeared - P. Melnik. This is the co-author who in August 2013 was put on the all-Ukrainian, interstate and international wanted list through Interpol for taking a bribe. It would be better if these figures wrote the Criminal Code for themselves, and not the Tax Code for us.
It was the introduction of VAT “a la Azarov and co” that led and regularly leads to scandals, both “with the VAT dump” in the tax authorities, and scandals with the detention of the most arrogant tax officials. Four years ago, after the arrest of the Odessa tax grande dame, I wrote my thoughts on this topic. Only now has data emerged on progress in that arrest. The grand lady did not “decide” at this stage, she “extracted” 6 years in prison. But there is still an appeal! You can decide there. True, it's more expensive. But this is a SYSTEM.
Since mid-2023, exports from ports, that is, the grain corridor, have intensified; accordingly, the tax office began to work more actively at the “export VAT dump” and new detentions began. SYSTEM
Moreover, in this link example there is an interesting nuance: what did the next tax grand dame take the loot for: “For making a decision to exclude an LLC from the list of payers that meet the risk criteria, as well as to register the stopped tax invoices of this LLC.” That is, not for the “dumpster of export VAT” through the budget, where, apparently, the woman agreed separately, but with this LLC she agreed on a different option. I guessed “cut down” twice on one diagram.
Preserving the tax system from Azarov is still the main trend of the entire government after the Maidan. Unfortunately for business and the entire country. But there were also businessmen on the Maidan. It was Azar’s tax policy, combined with the metastases of business takeovers from Sasha the Dentist, with all the injustice of what was happening, that were one of the motivations for the participation of small and medium-sized businesses in the affairs of the Maidan.
In fact, the tax system “from Azarov” mothballed business on the only possible option to survive, namely: the need to pay bribes and constantly develop protection systems. Protection is not from attacks by competitors or specific bandits. namely: from the horde of officials to grab from you everything that can be taken away.
This is the essence of the Horde taxation system from Azarov, which our entire government “cherished” so much after the Maidan. It is in this system that only an official from the “horde” (Baskaks) will determine the correct interpretation of certain provisions of the Code and be sure to fine “businessmen who, of course, sneaked in.”
And those who disagree will be sent further, that is, to a completely corrupt court (of course the Khan’s). With individual gifts and offerings, of course. To have plenty of fun with the one who decided to argue with an official from the horde.
It is precisely this, purely Mongolian, type of power that completely denies any agreement, and any cooperation between a slave and a slave is imposed on the principle: I am the boss - you are a fool and you must always pay a bribe. It was from the Horde arrangement of society that the “true Mongolian” Azarov wrote off his tax system of power of violence over business, in which the main thing is the neglect of the interests of business and freedom of enterprise for the sake, apparently, of the interests of the state, but in fact the interests of officials from the Horde (Baskaks). SYSTEMS, where the ability to adapt to any conditions and endure any humiliation, bribery as the basis of domestic politics, the organization of society in the image of the army, the behavior of the authorities as an occupation regime on the territory of their own country, mass terror to bring people into obedience, etc. raised to the absolute level by the country's Tax Code.
After all, it was in Horde society that the concepts of friend and enemy were cultivated, power = violence, if I can ruin, then I will definitely ruin. It is this hordeism that is incompatible with modern methods of building the economies of developed countries or developing businesses for the prosperity of the country of this business. The modern world of economics is built precisely on minimizing conflicts and contradictions between the state and business, on reducing the need to constantly resolve something in the courts in cases with the state. After all, only in this case is it possible to reveal the economy of Ukraine, the potential of those who will come to business after the war in our unfortunate Motherland. Unhappy until she gets rid of all the consequences of Stalinism in the brain or Azarism in taxes.
Business dissatisfaction with the actions of the “green authorities” is growing. The tax pressure, bribes, raids and other “pleasures” are not decreasing, and the horde is sending out Baskaks en masse. What is the government doing? Gathers dissatisfied people for “gatherings and discussion.” An example is the recent meeting of the President with business.
At the meeting, in particular: “Particular attention was paid to the implementation of digital solutions to modernize the interaction between the state and business. Namely, the creation of a platform for receiving feedback from business and an analytical module in the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations, which will allow you to see the full picture of criminal proceedings in the country in real time. The President claims that the digital platform will help establish feedback between government and business - regional, small, medium - and this will provide understanding and the opportunity to systematize issues that primarily concern entrepreneurs and identify ways to improve the business environment.”
Are you serious? Do businesses (regional, small, medium-sized) need to know in real time cases of criminal proceedings so much that it needs to be separately savored by the President? It seems that this is already the Moscow oprichnina, and not just a horde. How much are these fees for business? Starting from the Maidan? From the first hundred or from the first thousand? The idea of “green business nannies” has not yet been forgotten, but in return they have begun to give businesses access to registers of criminal cases against them.
There are no words at all for a censorial description of what is happening under this government.
Why can’t the President and his entire Parliament get together and in 3-4-6 months change the Tax Code to any other one, but not the Horde one? Cancel 500 pages of Azar's nonsense and another 1000 pages of comments on this tax nonsense? You already have hundreds of deputies who have gained experience in lawmaking at our expense, of course. To do at least something quickly and efficiently, to leave at least some positive memory of ourselves in Ukraine. And to answer, who is interested in maintaining the SYSTEM of destroying business in the country through the current tax system, through the administration of VAT, through total bribery of the tax apparatus?
Why can’t we prepare a normal, understandable taxation system for the time when hundreds of thousands of soldiers return from the front and go into business? Or does the government want those demobilized to return to “resolving issues a la the Horde”? Having expelled one horde from our land, will they return to put up with another, internal, tax horde? It seems to me that these are empty hopes. No one will want to put up with any horde anymore! It's not the same time anymore. Citizens are not the same as they were in 2014-15.
If for this purpose (precisely for this purpose) it is necessary to extend the powers of this government for another 3-4-6 months (already at the end), then we can still endure them. But so far, apart from meaningless meetings “a la Azarov,” there are no prospects for business in our country at all.
Once again, very disappointing!
