TAX AUDIT: CONTENT AND DUAL FUNCTION OF THE ACCOUNT AS AN OBJECT AND A TOOL

Abstract

Relying on the difficult economic situation, which worsened during the martial law in Ukraine, in order to keep the situation under control on the economic front, the state must rely on tax institutes, which are the most important lever of the state administration system and are responsible for the implementation of the revenue part of the state budget, from which the well-being of millions of Ukrainians will be at stake. That is why the role of the tax administration efficiency audit is increasing. The authors of the article considered approaches to the interpretation of tax audit, in particular, grouping according to audit and control definitions of its recognition was carried out. It was directly investigated that there is no definition of "tax audit" in the legislation of Ukraine, and any type of audit is classified as tax control, therefore, there is a terminological versatility of their characteristics in the practice of application. The dual function of accounting as an object and a means of tax audit is substantiated. An analysis of the legal framework and literary sources was carried out, which confirmed that tax audits from the point of view of tax legislation are procedural actions of control bodies used by them to control the correctness of calculation, completeness and timeliness of payment of taxes and fees in the form of inspections, and therefore this type of activity does not fully meet the general requirements of the audit and partially contradicts its essence. Tax audit, as a type of audit activity, requires legislative regulation. An analysis of literary sources was also conducted regarding the main aspects of its orientation in the context of the duality of the accounting function as an object and a means. Common features for an independent tax audit and a tax audit conducted by a state control body have been identified, among them there is a goal, namely: - confirmation that the tax reporting submitted to the control bodies accurately reflects all aspects of economic activity; the task is to establish the reliability of the calculation and payment of tax payments, to identify violations of the current tax legislation; subject – accounting and reporting documents, declarations and calculations for the payment of taxes, fees (mandatory payments), other documents of financial and economic activity; the objects of the tax audit are taxpayers, fees (mandatory payments) to budgets of all levels and state trust funds. It has been proven that taxpayers are interested in tax reporting audits by independent auditors. This justifies the need to make changes to the existing audit regulatory framework and create a separate methodological support for tax audits.