Zelensky signs law to disband tax police

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has signed a bill into law to outline the timing of disbanding the country's tax police.

Read alsoBill on Bureau of Economic Security passes second readingThe president enacted the law on March 1, according to the parliament's website.

On February 9, the document was sent to the head of state for signing.

Background

• On January 29, 2021, the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, passed bill No. 4090 in the first reading and as a whole. The document stipulated that the tax police had to be disbanded within a six-month period after the draft law on the creation of the Bureau of Economic Security (BES) becomes effective.
• Head of the Finance, Tax and Customs Policy Committee's subcommittee Olha Vasylevska-Smahliuk said the bill was required to ensure the transitional period for disbanding the tax police.
• "In order to agree on the time point of disbanding the tax police and ensure the transitional period for a new agency, we propose that the tax police be disbanded from the date of the resolution to launch the bureau's activities. However, it shall be done no later than six months from the date of entry into force of the law of Ukraine on the Bureau of Economic Security," she said.
• On January 28, 2021, the Verkhovna Rada passed a draft law in the second reading and as a whole to create the Bureau of Economic Security, which will take up functions to prevent, detect, suppress, investigate, and solve crimes in the field of the formation and use of financial resources of the state. The bill envisages that an internal oversight department will function as part of the BES to prevent, detect and respond appropriately to manifestations of corruption, as well as to monitor how BES employees comply with professional and ethics standards.
• In addition, the bill suggests disbanding tax police, as well as units of counterintelligence protection of the interests of the state in the field of economic security under the SBU Security Service.