Tax authorities want to expand access to banking secrecy: Nina Yuzhanina, member of the Verkhovna Rada Tax Committee
The Tax Service plans to expand its access to banking information, in particular, regarding financial transactions of Ukrainian citizens and businesses. About this reported Member of the Tax Committee of the Verkhovna Rada, Nina Yuzhanina.
According to the DPS proposal, banks should provide tax authorities with data on the movement of funds in the accounts of legal entities, sole proprietorships and individuals, including information about counterparties and the purpose of payments. These data will be used for tax audits of banks and their divisions.
As Yuzhanina explained, the DPS wants to receive information that is a bank secret, even regarding clients who are not the subjects of specific tax audits.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has already analyzed this initiative and stated that the current norms of the Tax Code already provide sufficient opportunities for tax authorities to obtain the necessary data. In addition, according to the court’s decision, the tax authorities can gain access to a much larger amount of information that is a bank secret, if reasonable grounds are provided.
Yuzhanina emphasized that expanding access to banking information without a clear need, as proposed by the DPS, may violate the implementation of European legislation in Ukraine. She also mentioned the negative opinion received in 2016 from the European Banking Authority (EBA), which criticized Ukraine’s privacy regime for non-compliance with EU requirements. This limits the exchange of information between Ukraine and European regulators.
The National Bank of Ukraine believes that the proposals of the DPS need significant revision before being submitted to the parliament to determine the optimal amount of information to be disclosed.
