Asters Participates in a Roundtable on Tax Law

>Asters once again affirmed its active position in the development of the legal profession by a discussion of current issues in law and the legal business and also finding common interests and opportunities in Ukraine. On 24 March 2009, Asters attorney Kostyantyn Solyar, an expert in tax law, was a participant in another Yuridicheskaya Gazeta roundtable entitled "Business Taxation and New Trends in Relations with the Tax Inspectorate. Lawyers’ Advice to Business".

Key issues of the concept-based discussion were the nature of the impact of the global economic crisis on the situation in Ukraine and on the mechanisms of cooperation with the tax agencies, as well as the particularities of the work of legal practitioners under the new conditions. The event’s participants confirmed that with the worsening of the economic situation in the country relations with the tax agencies have become more complex, and today, as compared with the pre-crisis period, such relations are less of a partnership in nature. Tax litigation in the courts has become more frequent, although lawyers endeavour to resolve the majority of conflicts at the pre-trial stage, even during stage of screening the corporate client.

As Kostyantyn Solyar noted, the tax practice of many firms, including Asters, has gained new momentum toward development due to new "one-time" clients, as well as already existing clients, who previously had been receiving advice with regard to others areas of the law. Mr. Solyar pinpointed three basic factors for the revitalization of tax practice: tougher relations with the tax agencies; the need for liquidation, the cessation activity many enterprises, including with respect to the possibility of compensation for VAT accrued; the restructuring of business, as well as searching for ways to finance a company and to infuse new assets into it.

As a result of the discussion, the representatives of each firm of the Ukrainian legal market affirmed that despite the current demand for tax law services, no one plans to expand tax practice quantitatively. And a great deal of hope has been placed on the media, including the professional media, with respect to assisting in the creation of a mechanism of social impact on several negative manifestations of tax agency policy and their interaction with the taxpayers.