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Where to find the true law? OR
How to determine valid provisions of the Tax Code at the particular time period?

19 January, 2024 Newsletters

Tax authorities, courts, taxpayers, legislators, and all others who are concerned with tax relations, refer to the Tax Code, or rather, to the text of its respective provisions on a certain date.

Therefore, are you sure that the corresponding text is correct and valid?

According to the Decree of the President of Ukraine No. 503/97, laws and other legislative acts of a general nature enter into force after their promulgation in the official printed publications, the list of which is determined by the same Decree.

That is, the real and valid text of a certain act is the text printed in the official publication according to the list from the Decree.

But if this text was changed by another act, which in turn was changed again, and so on almost ad infinitum, how would one define the valid text?

There is no “consolidated” text that would be recognized as official, or authentic on a certain date.

Hence you have to deal with a certain “building set”, which “players” can build differently.

The legislator creates the conditions for this through numerous, sometimes chaotic and inconsistent changes, moreover, they are often unsatisfactory in terms of technical quality and with defects “incorporated” as a result of the process.

The Tax Code of Ukraine is a perfect illustration of this problem. More than 200 laws amending it have been adopted during the period of operation of the Tax Code (since 2011).

The full version of the article is available in Ukrainian by the link.

Kind regards,

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