Changes in legislation for December 2023 during martial law
On December 8, the law canceling the moratorium on documentary checks by the State Tax Service of Ukraine entered into force.
Therefore, taking into account the amendments made to the Tax Code, from December 1, 2023 to December 31, 2024, inclusive, the plan-schedule of conducting scheduled document inspections for 2023 and 2024 can only include:
1. Taxpayers who carry out/have carried out activities in the field of production and/or sale of excise goods;
2. Taxpayers who carry out/have carried out activities in the field of organization and conduct of gambling in Ukraine (gambling business);
3. Taxpayers who provide/have provided financial and payment services;
4. Non-residents who carry out/have carried out activities in Ukraine through separate subdivisions, including permanent representative offices, and/or detached subdivisions, including permanent representative offices of a non-resident, who meet at least one of the following criteria: the level of income tax growth by 50 and is more than a percentage less than the rate of growth of the taxpayer's income; declaration of accrued wages in the absence of declaration of the subject of income tax or declaration of income exempted from taxation in accordance with the international treaty of Ukraine;
5. Other taxpayers who, on the basis of indicators formed at the end of the 2021 calendar year, meet at least one of the following criteria: the level of income tax payment is 50 percent or more lower than the level of tax payment in the relevant industry. This criterion does not apply to single tax payers; the level of payment of value added tax is 50 percent or more lower than the level of tax payment in the relevant industry.
Amendments to the plan-schedule can be made monthly, taking into account the circumstances of force majeure (force majeure), the presence/absence of safe conditions for conducting such inspections.
In particular, the Central Administration informs that starting from December 1, 2023, a moratorium on document checks for:
1. single tax payers of groups I and II - until December 1, 2024;
2. taxpayers whose tax address as of the date of the beginning of the temporary occupation is the territory temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation;
3. taxpayers whose tax address as of the date of the start of hostilities is the territory where active hostilities are taking place ;
4. taxpayers whose tax address as of the date of the beginning of possible hostilities is the territory of possible hostilities .
Also, from December 1, 2023, there is a temporary moratorium on conducting actual inspections at the location of taxation objects or objects related to taxation, which:
- as of the date of the beginning of the temporary occupation, were located in the temporarily occupied territories of the Russian Federation;
- as of the date of the start of active hostilities, were located in the territories where active hostilities are being conducted, until the date of the end of hostilities in the respective territories;
- as of the date of the beginning of possible hostilities, were located in the territories of possible hostilities (except for inspections of taxpayers engaged in the production and/or sale of excise goods, organization and conduct of gambling in Ukraine (gambling business), purchase/sale of foreign currency, entities that conduct business without state registration as a business entity).
December 9 The European Council and the Parliament have achieved previous agreement regarding the Law on Artificial intelligence (hereinafter AI) .
What is the purpose of the AI law.
Data from windows about AI establishes agreed rules for the development , introduction to the market and use of artificial intelligence systems in Europe union , according to proportional approach based on risk.
The law establishes reliable methodology of risk to determine high-risk" systems Ш and which constitute considerable potential risk to health and safety or fundamental rights of individuals. These systems and AI should meet a set of mandatory horizontal requirements for the reliability and safety of artificial intelligence and go through the procedures evaluations compliance before these systems with may be introduced to the EU market.
According to the law, it is up to the suppliers of AI systems clear duties software safety and compliance existing legislation that protects fundamental rights during everything life cycle of artificial intelligence systems.
There will be rules to be carried out through the management system at the level member countries and the mechanism cooperation at the level of the Union with the formation European Council on and Artificial Intelligence.
Definition of the term artificial intelligence.
In the AI account, it is internationally agreed recognized criteria, following OECD instructions, which define an artificial intelligence system as follows:
"is a machine system that for obvious or implicit goals does conclusion based on received input data how to generate results such as predictions, content, recommendations or solutions which they can affect the physical or virtual the environment."
It definition gives him wide scope of application, because artificial intelligence may influence any sector, excluding it application only using Ш And in the sectors which require special rules, such as military and defense, in addition to research, innovation and layman use.
Obligations regarding the use of AI systems.
The AI Act places a strong emphasis on rights and transparency, and makes fundamental rights impact assessments mandatory for AI systems used in the insurance and banking sectors. In particular, general purpose AI systems that may cause systemic risk have the following obligations:
Risk Management: Organizations are required to conduct model assessments using state-of-the-art protocols and tools.
Ed Teaming: Competitive testing should be conducted and thoroughly documented to identify and address systemic risks.
Cyber security: a reliable level of cyber security must be ensured , both for the AI model and for its physical infrastructure.
Energy consumption: Business entities are required to monitor, record and disclose the actual or estimated energy consumption of the model.
In addition, providers are obliged to:
adopt policies that comply with Union copyright laws, using advanced technologies where appropriate; and
prepare a comprehensive overview of the materials used to train the AI model.
This law entered into force already in January 2024.
This law, starting from February 17, 2022, was developed and prepared for implementation for 18 months. This is one of the long-awaited projects, which establishes the principles of administrative proceedings, which aims to become a new stage in the interaction of executive and local self-government bodies with citizens and legal entities.
The Law on Administrative Procedure establishes the principles of administrative proceedings and defines clear procedures in relations between citizens, businesses and the government, in particular:
- the law gives citizens the right to participate in administrative proceedings, to get acquainted with the case materials and to submit their proposals before the decision is made;
- the law defines the concept of "interested persons" and obliges authorities to substantiate their decisions;
"interested persons" - people whose interests and rights may be violated as a result of a decision by an administrative body;
- the law also provides for transparency in the provision of services and a simplified procedure for appealing the decisions of administrative bodies;
- according to the Law "On Administrative Procedure", a person will have the right to appeal a decision made by an administrative body, if its implementation may violate his right or legitimate interest, thus, in a judicial procedure, the complainant will be able to demand that the administrative act be recognized as illegal, oblige to change or cancel the act or its separate provisions.
Also, in addition to explaining the new concept of an interested person, the following terms were added: "administrative body", administrative act", "functions of public administration".
According to this legal act, the category "administrative body" is executive power bodies, local self-government bodies, their officials and other entities authorized to perform the functions of public administration (professional associations of lawyers; directorate of a public school; individual enterpreneurs and legal entities performing functions of public administration).
An administrative act is a decision taken by an administrative body to resolve a specific case (issuing a permit or license, registering a place of residence, assigning a pension, etc.) and is aimed at acquiring, changing, terminating or realizing the rights and (or) obligations of individuals.
The functions of public administration according to the Law provide for the provision of administrative services, the resolution of cases at the request of a person or at the initiative of an administrative body, as well as the implementation of inspection activities.
Regulatory and legal documents that come into force at the beginning of 2024.
for the 1st quarter, the MW will be 7,100 hryvnias ;
for the 2nd-4th quarter, the MW will be 8,000 hryvnias.
2. The subsistence minimum has been changed per person in the amount of 2,920 hryvnias per month, and for the main social and demographic groups of the population:
· children under 6 years of age - from 2,563 hryvnias; · children aged 6 to 18 years - 3196 hryvnias; · able-bodied persons - 3,028 hryvnias; · able-bodied persons, which is used to determine the basic salary of a judge, - 2102 hryvnias; · able-bodied persons, which is used to determine the salaries of employees of other state bodies whose wages are regulated by special laws, as well as employees of tax and customs authorities, - 2,102 hryvnias; · able-bodied persons, which is used to determine the official salary of the prosecutor of the district prosecutor's office, - 1,600 hryvnias; · persons who have lost their ability to work - 2,361 hryvnias.
This law entered into force on January 1, 2024.
On November 14, the Government adopted a resolution on foreign e-trust services in Ukraine.
It is envisaged that the adopted provisions will provide an opportunity to use qualified electronic signatures of EU countries in Ukraine, which will enable EU citizens to sign e-documents in Ukraine with their e-signatures, as well as provide electronic trust services in our country.
This Resolution was adopted to implement the provisions of the Law of Ukraine dated 01.12.2022 No. 2801-IX on mutual recognition of qualified electronic trust services between Ukraine and the EU.
It is expected that such innovations will simplify electronic interaction with foreign partners, in particular, when conducting business.
The resolution entered into force simultaneously with the mentioned Law, that is, on December 31, 2023.
November 24 Verkhovna Rada approved law on humanitarian help, about making changes to some legislative Acts of simplification of the procedure for importation , accounting and distribution humanitarian help.
In accordance with the adopted law, the following changes will enter into force:
1. the list of recipients of humanitarian aid will be expanded, including foreign charitable organizations whose representative offices are accredited in Ukraine, as well as non-profit state and communal institutions, local self-government bodies and social service providers;
2. previously only those goods that were received free of charge from the donor were considered humanitarian aid. According to the new rules, goods purchased by charitable organizations abroad, which when imported into Ukraine are declared as humanitarian aid, can also be recognized as humanitarian aid. The main condition is the free transfer of these goods to buyers within 90 days from the date of crossing the customs border;
3. an electronic system of accounting for humanitarian aid is introduced. Starting from November 1, testing of the platform of the Automated System of Registration of Humanitarian Aid (https://human-aid.ioc.gov.ua/) started until December 1 of this year. The system is designed to digitize the process of importing and accounting for humanitarian aid from abroad. The main goal of this stage of testing is to find out what can be improved in the work, where there are problem areas and how to optimize the process;
4. the procedure for changing the recipient and recipient of humanitarian aid, redistribution and return of humanitarian aid to the donor is regulated;
5. it is possible to transfer humanitarian aid under the guise of a vehicle not only to military units, but also to military personnel as individuals (recipients);
6. in order to facilitate the process of accounting for humanitarian aid, an electronic accounting system was introduced. In particular, the norm regarding the submission of monthly reports is suspended until its full implementation.
This law entered into force on December 31, 2023.
On December 21, the President of Ukraine signed Law No. 3448, which amends Law of Ukraine No. 1192- XIV of October 22, 1999 "On Humanitarian Aid", namely: expanding the list of persons who can be recipients and recipients of humanitarian aid, including:
1. public associations and organizations, including public associations of war veterans, public associations of persons with disabilities, enterprises and organizations founded by them and created in accordance with the procedure specified by the Law of Ukraine "On Public Associations" - for the implementation their statutory activities without the purpose of obtaining profit;
2. non-profit state and communal enterprises, institutions, organizations and local self-government bodies;
3. the central body of the executive power that implements state policy in the field of civil protection, and/or another authorized central body of the executive power - to ensure the forces of civil protection subordinated to such bodies;
4. The Red Cross Society of Ukraine and its regional and local organizations with the status of a legal entity, through which this society carries out its activities in accordance with the Statute of the Red Cross Society of Ukraine and the Law of Ukraine "On the Red Cross Society of Ukraine";
5. charitable organizations formed in accordance with the procedure established by the Law of Ukraine "On Charitable Activities and Charitable Organizations";
6. religious organizations registered in accordance with the procedure established by the Law of Ukraine "On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations";
7. institutions, enterprises, establishments, regardless of the form of ownership, that carry out rehabilitation of persons with disabilities and children with disabilities in accordance with state social standards in the field of rehabilitation, providers of social services, entered in the Register of providers and recipients of social services;
8. providers of medical and/or rehabilitation services, regardless of the form of ownership, who have entered into an agreement on medical care of the population with the central executive body implementing state policy in the field of state financial guarantees of medical care of the population, health care institutions belonging to the sphere of management of sub entities of the security and defense sector;
9. separate divisions of foreign non-governmental organizations accredited in Ukraine;
10. representative offices of international intergovernmental organizations in Ukraine (without creating a legal entity);
11. diplomatic missions, consular institutions of foreign countries in Ukraine;
12. recipients of humanitarian aid are natural and legal persons who need aid and to whom it is directly provided. Recipients of humanitarian aid with the status of a legal entity are determined in accordance with the previous subsections;
and the right of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine to establish a simplified procedure for recognition of goods as humanitarian aid based on the declarative principle during the period of martial law is enshrined at the legislative level.
The specified changes relate specifically to the issues of recognition of goods as humanitarian aid, their accounting, reporting of recipients, as well as distribution and control over the targeted use of humanitarian aid in conditions of martial law. With _ the mechanism of the passage of humanitarian aid by the customs authorities aid through the customs border of Ukraine basically does not change .
This law enters into force one month after its publication, on January 23, 2024.
August 30 The President of Ukraine signed the Law dated July 14, 2023 No. 3254-IX "On credit unions". Among the innovations is a new version of the law offers the following changes:
· the law allows credit unions to assign their right to demand payment on loans provided by members of the union and/or other credit unions in the event of overdue debt.
· credit unions can accept share contributions without concluding a contract, but must provide confirmation of their receipt.
· any agreements concluded with persons related to the credit union may not contain conditions that do not correspond to current market conditions or violate equal conditions for the provision of services for all members; such agreements may be declared invalid by a court decision.
· acts committed after the regulator made a decision to revoke the license or within one year before that, if they caused damage, may also be declared invalid in a court of law during the liquidation procedure initiated either by the regulator itself or by appointed liquidators on behalf of creditors who received the property according to these transactions, which should then return it as part of the liquidation mass at the initial value, which is based on market prices at the time of concluding the transaction.
This law entered into force on January 1, 2024 .
On March 20, the Verkhovna Rada adopted in the second reading a draft law on the automatic exchange of information on financial accounts - the so-called Common reporting standard Reporting Standard (CRS).
The draft law provided for sanctions for failure to comply with CRS standards in Ukraine:
· duty financial institution to refuse to the client in discoveries accounts or in provision financial services, or to stop service account if the client did not provide documents provided for by the CRS standard, or provided unreliable information;
· tax law bodies in To hold an unscheduled emergency in Ukraine tax verification of a non-resident who leads activity in Ukraine, and apply a fine to it, in case violation requirements of the CRS standard, in particular for non-submission or presentation documents are incomplete volumes;
· duty non-residents in, as well as lead activity or receive income in Ukraine, submit the ownership structure and information about their final beneficiary owner together with the tax office income tax declaration;
· application fines sanctions for non-submission tax authorities of the structure property and information about one's own final beneficiary the owner
All fines specified in this law for violation of requirements for submission/non-submission of reporting and other information came into effect on January 1, 2024.
Submission of Controlled foreign companies (CFC) reporting.
The first CFC report must be submitted to CFC controllers in 2023 by May 1, 2023 for the 2022 period or in 2024 by May 1, 2024 for the 2022-2023 period. Simultaneously you can report with submission annual declarations of property status and income (submitted usually by May 1) or tax income tax returns enterprises.
On May 17, 2023, the National Securities and Stock Market Commission (hereinafter referred to as NSSMC) in compliance with the requirements of the new version of the Law of Ukraine "On Joint Stock Companies" No. 2465- IX of July 27, 2022, approved:
· The procedure for maintaining the accounting system of shares of limited liability companies and companies with additional liability, approved by the decision of the NSSMC No. 525 dated May 17, 2023 ("Accounting Procedure"); and
· The procedure for holding general meetings of members of limited liability companies and companies with additional liability using electronic communication means through the accounting system of shares, approved by the decision of NSSMC No. 526 dated May 17, 2023 ("Procedure for holding general meetings").
Both solutions entered into force on January 1 , 2024.
According to this law, starting from July 1, 2021 and until January 1, 2024, only natural persons-citizens of Ukraine will be able to buy agricultural land and only up to 100 hectares of land per person.
And from January 1, 2024, the Law entered into force of the second part on the land market begins - the market opens for legal entities created and registered under the legislation of Ukraine, the participants (shareholders, members) of which are only citizens of Ukraine and/or the state, and/or territorial communities, with the right to acquire ownership of up to 10,000 hectares of land. However, there is a possibility of postponing this part, in case of consideration of the draft law from December 21, 2023, to January 1, 2025.