Accounting & tax records
Goods-less Transactions in Ukraine: What Expertise Shows
How economic expertise in Ukraine documents a goods-less deal: the primary records analysed, key indicators and the limits of expert competence.
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Accounting & tax records
Examining accounting records: fictitious and goodless transactions, VAT schemes, understated income.
Examination of accounting and tax records and reporting is specialism 11.1, the most common in tax disputes and in criminal cases with an economic element. Its subject is simple to state and demanding to perform: do the documents supplied support the figures set out in an audit report, an indictment or a statement of claim?
The anchor rule is Article 44 of the Tax Code: the data in tax reporting must be supported by primary documents, accounting registers and financial statements. The requirement cuts both ways — the controlling authority cannot build an assessment on tax information alone, without primary documents. Typical subjects of study are goodless and unreal transactions, VAT “twist” schemes, overstated input VAT credit, unconfirmed expenses, understated income and payroll calculations.
The expert needs contracts with annexes, outgoing and tax invoices, acceptance acts, transport documents, cash and bank documents, trial balances, the general ledger, returns and calculations, and the accounting policy order. What the expert does not do is establish the “fictitiousness” of a counterparty or qualify the conduct of officials: those are legal assessments reserved for the court.
Articles in this category
Accounting & tax records
Documents for an Accounting Records Examination in Ukraine
A Ukrainian forensic economist on the document package for an accounting and tax records examination: primary records, registers and reports.
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Accounting & tax records
Challenging a Tax Notice-Decision (PPR) in Ukraine
Forensic economic examination helps disprove tax authority assessments and challenge a tax notice-decision (PPR) in Ukraine's administrative courts.
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Accounting & tax records
Fictitious Supplier in Ukraine: Proving the Deal Was Real
Ukraine's tax service calls a deal unreal because of a doubtful supplier? Which documents prove real supply and how expert analysis confirms it.
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Accounting & tax records
VAT Schemes and Skrutky in Ukraine: Exposing Fake Credit
How economic expertise exposes Ukrainian VAT schemes and skrutky from documents: the tax pit, the transiter, the chain gap and SMKOR scoring.
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Accounting & tax records
Questions for an Expert in Ukraine: Tax and Accounting
How counsel frames questions for a forensic economic expert in Ukrainian tax and accounting cases: accounting facts, not guilt, with wording.
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Accounting & tax records
Challenging an Expert Report in Ukraine: Peer Review
How to critique a forensic economic expert report in Ukraine, expose the errors and support a motion for a repeat or supplementary examination.
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Accounting & tax records
Tax Evasion in Ukraine (Art. 212): Calculating the Amount
How a forensic economist calculates unpaid taxes under Article 212 of Ukraine's Criminal Code, and how the thresholds decide the qualification.
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Accounting & tax records
Cost and Timeline of an Accounting-Records Examination
What drives the cost and duration of a forensic examination of accounting and tax records in Ukraine, and how to avoid delays that inflate both.
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Accounting & tax records
Detecting Understated Revenue in Ukraine: Expert Methods
How forensic examination in Ukraine detects understated company revenue: schemes for hiding sales, source documents and cross-checking methods.
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Frequently asked questions
Can an expert establish that a counterparty is fictitious?
No. “Fictitiousness” is a legal assessment made by the court. The expert answers an economic question: are the supply, the payment, the recording in stock and the onward movement of the goods supported by documents? It is the sum of those answers that builds the evidence on whether a transaction was real.
Is an examination possible if documents were seized in a search?
Yes. The study can be based on duly certified copies or on documents obtained in the manner the procedural law provides, including temporary access to items and documents. What matters is that the copies are complete and legible: fragmentary scans without visible requisites will not be accepted for study.
Which documents are needed for an accounting examination?
At minimum: primary documents for the period, accounting registers and trial balances, the general ledger, financial and tax reporting, contracts with counterparties and the accounting policy order. Where VAT is at issue, tax invoices and data from the Unified Register of Tax Invoices are added.
Can an expert confirm a transaction without primary documents?
No. A bank statement shows the movement of money but does not by itself prove that goods were delivered or works performed. Without primary documents the expert will record that the fact cannot be established from the materials supplied — an honest result, not a flaw in the study.