The relevance of research is attributed to our state endeavor to achieve constructive results of decentralization reform, to approach in this regard the standards achieved in the European Union. Increase in tax revenues to local budgets, the use of parking tax potential to this end will serve an efficient fiscal leverage in building the solid financial foundation of territorial communities. To obtain the intended goal it is necessary to enhance the scientific support of parking fee collection, to develop proposals regarding the improvement of current legislation.
As a result of the undertaken research, critical analysis of achievements in national and foreign science, national legislation, the law of European and post- Soviet states regarding parking tax payments collection, the solution of the scientific problem has been achieved – the improvement in theoretical foundation and practices of tax legal regulation of vehicle parking fees collection.
The retrospective research of domestic tax legislation has allowed to single out (depending on the corresponding key normative legal act) a number of conditioned chronological (physical-calendar) periods/stages of tax legislation modernization, relevant to the vehicle parking: the first period (1991– June 5, 1993). Its peculiar feature is the absence of statutory regulation of parking fees charging on the national scale, whereas on the local level the interference from the authorities was predominantly of the random nature; the second period (June 5, 1993 – December 2, 2010). The dominant act of this period is the Decree of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine «On local taxes and fees». Within this period the modernization of statutory regulation regarding the collection of the domestic parking payment was carried out in two stages:1) from June 5, 1993 to July 11, 1995; 2) from July 11, 1995 to December 2, 2010. This division is warranted by the correction made in 1995, which concerned the fundamental refusal on the part of the lawmaker while determining the limit fee rate to align it with the minimum wage in favor of tax-free minimum income; the third period (December 2, 2010 – to date). Its beginning is related to the adoption of today's key legislative act – the Tax Code of Ukraine. The three stages within this period have been elaborated: 1) from December 2, 2010 to December 28, 2014; 2) from December 28, 2014 to
December 24, 2015; 3) from December 24, 2015 to date. The specificity of the above mentioned stages can be attributed, in particular, to changing the name and structure of the profile section (section XII) of The Tax Code of Ukraine, to the introduction of the new specialized article (Article 268¹ instead of Article 266), which took over the legislative regulation of the tax payment under analysis, to the authorizing the councils of united territorial communities in the context of determining the payers of the fee and its object.
The use of a triad of alternative criteria for the chronological periodization of the genesis of the tax legislation of Ukraine related to vehicle parking is suggested:
a) the date of adoption by the competent body of the main regulatory legal act (chosen as the basic reason for temporal division); b) variant of the textual definition of parking items used in legislative acts (in this context the domestic lawmaker treats as identical the categories that are different in terms of content: vehicle, motor transport, means of transport); c) the date of entry into force of legislative acts of the corresponding thematic nature.
It has been substantiated that the parking fee is intrinsically nominally compulsory, off-target, free, unconditional as well as irrevocable cash payment to the corresponding local budget, which is collected in accordance with the Tax Code of Ukraine. These properties of the national parking mandatory fee allow attributing it to the taxes.
It has been elucidated that the legal nature of the parking tax fee, which is currently collected in Ukraine, should be expediently revealed by means of characterizing it as a local, real (property), direct tax from business entities, which organize and conduct activities concerning providing vehicle parking in paid parking areas as well as specially designated parking lots.
A new approach to grouping fees as tax payments with the intended use of funds collected has been suggested. The extension of the relevant classification at the cost of adding to the corresponding series (fees of social nature; fees of environment-resource nature; fees of economic nature) of property-nature fees (fees on possession/use of property, fees on conveyance/alienation of property) has been substantiated. The adoption of the different perspective as to the inner gradation allows the division of this group into fees for immovable property and those for movable property.
