Date: 21 November, 2019

ETERNA LAW team of lawyers defended the interests of the large taxpayer - PJSC "Stevedoring Company" AVLITA" in a complex tax dispute in which the court investigated the tax liability accrued to the payer since the temporary occupation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. The supervisory authority argued that writing off the tax debt does not belong to its duties, instead is an exclusive right, and payers' debts continue to be kept up-to-date in information bases, which does not prevent the processing of such information, but gives it irrelevant status in fulfillment, charged to the enforcement authorities.

ETERNA LAW successfully convinced the court that change of the payer location from the temporarily occupied territory to another territory of Ukraine is sufficient basis for writing off the tax debt arising from the temporary occupation. As the result, the claim is satisfied completely and the actions on not writing off the accrued tax debt on advance contributions from income tax of the General Directorate of the State Fiscal Service in the Kyiv region were founded unlawful. The court firmly concluded that the tax authority lacked the discretionary authority to commit such an act and the need to restore the violated right of the payer by obliging the defendant to write off the tax debt.

The project was led by a team led by Oleh Beketov, Senior Partner and Head of International Litigation, and included Kristina Shapovalova, Senior Associate.