SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE ASPECTS OF TAX ADMINISTRATION: LEVERS TO COMBAT TAX AVOIDANCE

Abstract

No country in the world, no matter how hard it tries, could not, cannot and will not be able to get rid of the informal economy. The reality is that today, according to various experts, from one third to more than half of Ukraine's GDP is created in the informal sector of the economy. The informal economy in Ukraine is not a separate phenomenon, but the result of a systemic economic crisis, it affects all areas of economic activity, including the efficiency of the tax system, which in turn affects the stability and power of the state. For its part, one of the signs of the effectiveness of the tax system is the scale of the use of tax evasion schemes. The purpose of the article is to study the processes of tax administration from the standpoint of providing socially responsible service of the state fiscal service of Ukraine, the use of levers to combat tax evasion, provide recommendations for reducing the informal sector and the main schemes of tax evasion in Ukraine. The subject of the study is the informal sector and methods of preventing one of the consequences - tax evasion. Methods used in the study: systems analysis, economic and statistical methods, information processing, the method of logical generalization of results, expert assessments, etc. Presenting main material. The article examines the main trends in employment in the informal sector of the national economy. The essence of the concept of tax evasion and the reasons for it were revealed. The most common schemes as a result of which the budget of Ukraine suffers the greatest losses are indicated, during which proposals to improve tax administration as a significant lever for minimizing tax offenses in the field of tax evasion within the informal sector of the economy were identified. The practical significance of the obtained results lies in the possibility of using the developed recommendations for independent analysis of the economic situation in Ukraine. Conclusions and further prospects of the study. An analysis of various tax evasion mechanisms has shown that most of them are due to lack of control by fiscal authorities, weak level of development of the system of electronic administration of goods and funds between businesses and the inability to properly calculate and pay taxes. Therefore, from the proposed recommendations to reduce the amount and loss of the budget from tax evasion schemes within the informal sector of the economy, we can highlight that consistency is key. First of all, according to the priorities arising from the current rating, these are measures aimed at combating aggressive tax planning. This should be followed by the completion of VAT administration reform and, importantly, a further significant reduction in the share of the state, which should provide fiscal space for a significant reduction in income tax and abolition of labor tax, but this takes more time due to various problems in the country.