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The establishment of a new financial investigation service as proposed by the Ukrainian Finance Ministry will ease fiscal authorities' pressure on businesses, according to Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman.
"I believe that the elimination of economic control functions of the tax police, the Interior Ministry and the SBU Security Service, and their [subsequent] transfer to the integrated Financial Investigation Service will let remove pressure [put on businesses] by the tax and law enforcement agencies. It is time to stop the practice when each of these services conducts their own inspection of businesses! There should be a single service, built on European principles, which will be engaged in countering financial crimes in Ukraine," Groysman wrote on Facebook on Monday, February 6.
Read alsoFinance Ministry to submit draft law on financial police to Cabinet Feb 1 – DanyliukFinance Minister Oleksandr Danyliuk earlier said that the elimination of the economic departments under the Interior Ministry, the SBU, and the State Fiscal Service should be part of the general reform of Ukraine's Fiscal Service. The government also admitted that the tax police should be replaced by the financial investigation service, but its structure, functions and subordination were a subject of debates.
By early February, the Finance Ministry announced its plans to send a draft law on financial police to the government within days. The document provides for comprehensive reform of the tax authorities' law-enforcement unit and its reorganization into an analytical service. At the same time, the government was mulling over the formation of a financial investigation service before the end of 2017, which would combine the functions of tax police, as well as economic units of the law-enforcement agencies, including the Interior Ministry and the SBU.