Legislative news digest: LEGAL HOTLINE 30.01.2018

THE PROCEDURE FOR ISSUING THE EUR.1 CERTIFICATE WAS UPDATED

The Ministry of Finance of Ukraine has defined the procedure for filling out and issuing the EUR.1 certificate by the customs office; this certificate confirms the status of preferential origin of goods. The procedure was developed in accordance with the norms of the Association Agreement between Ukraine, on the one hand, and the European Union, the European Atomic Energy Community and their Member States, on the other hand (No. 1678-VII of September 16, 2014).

The decision on issuing or denial of the certificate is to be made within the shortest term possible, but within not more than 8 working hours after the registration of the application at the customs. The procedure for filling out and issuing the EUR.1 certificate of the transportation (origin) of goods by the customs office was approved by the Order of the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine No. 950 of November 20, 2017, which came into effect on January 23, 2018.

Accordingly, the Procedure for filling out and issuing the EUR.1 certificate of the transportation of goods by the customs office that was approved by the Orders of the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine No. 40, No. 652, and No. 1142, ceased to be in force.

THE DISCOUNT RATE WAS INCREASED TO 16%

The Board of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) decided to raise the discount rate to 16% per annum as from January 26, 2018.

The discount rate increase was approved by the NBU Board’s Decision No. 43-рш “On the Discount Rate” of January 25, 2018.

CHANGES IN THE FIELD OF PUBLIC PROCUREMENT

On January 24, 2018, the President of Ukraine signed the Law “On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On Public Procurement” and Some Other Laws of Ukraine on Procurement Monitoring” (hereinafter referred to as “the Law”).

The Law was adopted on December 21, 2017 and provides for the increased control at all stages of procurement.

The State Audit Service of Ukraine will carry out regular procurement monitoring. The decision to monitor procurement will be made: if there is the respective information of the automatic risk indicators system; upon receipt of information from state authorities; in case of availability of mass media publications on signs of violations; if the service employees independently detect violations. Instead of being a “supervisory function”, monitoring will become a “preliminary control”, during which the customer will be notified about violations.

The Law takes effect on the day following the day of its publication.

NEW RULES FOR FORMING THE REGISTER OF LARGE TAXPAYERS

On January 23, 2018, amendments to the Procedure for Forming the Register of Large Taxpayers (hereinafter referred to as “the Register”), which were approved by the Order of the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine No. 1003 of December 6, 2017, came into force.

According to these amendments, the selection of taxpayers for their inclusion in the Register for the following calendar year is now to be carried based on the analysis of information on the total revenue from all types of taxpayer’s activities and the amount of taxes paid to the State Budget for the last four consecutive tax (reporting) quarters. This information is to be provided to the structural unit of the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine (SFS) endowed with the function to maintain the Register, by August 27 of the current year.

The notification on the taxpayer’s inclusion in the Register, as well as the SFS’s decision on changing the main place of registration and transferring it to the Large Taxpayer Office of the SFS may be sent as hard copies by mail or to the email (from which the last taxpayer’s tax report was sent) with the use of the electronic digital signature (EDS).