Ukraine to Scale-up Fight Against Financial Crimes

Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers has approved a plan that will strengthen the measures to prevent financial crimes such as tax evasion by major business organizations and will also eliminate the money laundering activities occurring in the offshore zones. This has been reported by the Ukraine Finance Ministry’s press service. 

The report said, “The Cabinet of Minister’s decision of March 3 has approved a plan of measures to prevent the evasion of taxes and fees by business entities and to prevent money laundering in offshore zones.” 

The following measures are to be taken according to the plan:

• Making sure that the Ukrainian list of offshore zones is updated 
• Taking into account that the European Union’s legal requirements and the data of the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes and the OECD are also updated
• Preventing the unlawful transfer of funds overseas, which includes the offshore zones, the illicit movements of the goods based on the forged or fake invoices or receipts. 
• Law enforcement authorities to receive generalized materials formed that is resulted by monitoring financial transactions
• Determining the materials that are linked to the legalization of income generated from tax crimes
• Introducing a system of automatic exchange of information with other countries and the tax authorities, specifically aligned with the Common Reporting Standard (CRS)

Additionally, an action plan should be implemented regarding the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting. This can be implemented through the adoption of the relevant regulations. Tax control measures can be an additional point of the plan. This can prevent the risks of the unexplainable formation of the added value of tax by the taxpayers. This will take into view the risk category of business organisations with tax evasion criminals.