The dissertation is devoted to the formulation of the concept of taxpayer's fault in tax and legal regulation. Based on the results of the scientific research, the author formulated conclusions, proposals and recommendations aimed at solving the tasks of the dissertation research and, therefore, achieving its purpose.
The results of the analysis of the process of formation and development of legal regulation of legal liability for tax evasion outlined in this dissertation indicate that the Soviet model was characterised by the State's coercive influence on a taxpayer with the aim of ensuring the so-called ‘common public good’ by collecting the amounts of taxes and fees resulting from such a taxpayer's economic activity. The characteristic means of fulfilling the tax obligation, given the consequences of the administrative-command system of regulation of economic relations - residual expropriation of business entities - were the types of legal liability (criminal, administrative, civil, disciplinary) declared in the Constitution of Ukraine (part 22 of Article 92).
It is stated that fault was a subjective characteristic of the act for which the relevant type of liability was provided and was expressed in the form of intent or negligence. Bringing a taxpayer (an officer of an organization regardless of ownership or an individual) to liability was carried out within the framework of relevant proceedings (criminal, administrative, disciplinary) and involved preliminary tax control procedures, which resulted in the formation of arrears, the amount of which was taken into account when qualifying the act, in particular when determining losses to the state in the form of unpaid tax liabilities. The existence of the taxpayer's right to clarify the amount of tax liability in the legislation has led to the need to prove only the intentional form of guilt of such a taxpayer.
The dissertation notes that the complexity of law enforcement and the awareness of the expediency of compensatory nature led to the fact that certain types of legal liability (disciplinary, administrative, criminal) were applied to an official and/or an individual participant of tax legal relations, and punitive financial sanctions (fines) and certain types of penalties attributed to civil liability (fines) - to legal entities or to individuals who were equated to legal entities. This led to the formation of an independent type of taxpayer liability - financial liability. This type of liability allowed the tax authorities to exert influence on both collective and individual taxpayers. At the same time, financial liability has long been identified as a measure of tax liability, given the absence of corpus delicti of relevant offences, and hence the subjective characteristic (guilt).
The dissertation outlines the formation of the concept of guilt in tax and legal regulation through the prism of the development of the institute of tax offences and liability for them. It is substantiated that the basis for the formation of the ‘concept of guilt in tax and legal regulation’, given the nature of financial (tax) legal relations, was: - the formation of a tax offence in the Tax Code of Ukraine; - the grounds for bringing a taxpayer to financial liability for tax offences; - the relevant corpus depict of tax offences; - the formation of the compensatory function of financial liability, which mediates the distinction from other types of legal liability; - the need to distinguish between types of legal liability; - the need to distinguish between fines and penalties financial sanctions for tax offences within the category of tax debt and other interim measures, including those not related to the taxpayer's liability; - the existence of a special subject of a tax offence - a taxpayer regardless of the type (individual or collective); - increasing the efficiency of tax liability with due diligence in the conduct of economic activity; - peculiarities of the procedure for bringing to financial responsibility, in particular, the formation of guaranteeing the legality of penalties imposed on taxpayers in the form of financial penalties; - Achieving uniformity in the law enforcement practice of tax authorities and courts.
Keywords: guilt, tax offence, financial liability, taxpayer, tax relations, tax authorities, tax legislation of Ukraine, subject of control, tax legislation of foreign countries, psychological concept of taxpayer's guilt, institution of guilt, Kingdom of Spain.
