The Acting Head of the Tax Service of Ukraine Tetiana Kiriyenko may resign, following the scandalous Minister of Defense Oleksiy Reznikov, 360UA.NEWS in its investigation.
The reasons for the probable resignation of Tetiana Kiriyenko and the already former Minister of Defense Oleksiy Reznikov are similar: the demands of Western partners in connection with general corruption and incompetence. The only difference is that if Reznikov's release was preceded by an inspection by the State Audit Service and the visit of USAID head Samantha Power to Kyiv, then in the case of Tetyana Kiriyenko NABU and the FBI were involved, which redoubled their efforts after the arrival in Kyiv of the special representative of the US president for Ukraine, Penny Pritzker.
In a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyi and representatives of the Ukrainian establishment, Prytsker advised not to wait for help from the West, but to "start looking for growth points within the country . In other words, to establish order in the tax administration system of the Ukrainian economy, which was able to withstand the wartime conditions. According to Penny Pritzker, the Ukrainian authorities should already think about filling the budget from internal sources, which will be difficult to do without changing the leadership of the tax service.
Today, the Tax Service of Ukraine is actually overseen by one person: the head of the Verkhovna Rada on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy, Danylo Hetmantsev. Tetyana Kiriyenko is one hundred percent his person, she moved to work in the Tax Department from KRAIL, where she also served the business interests of the Hetmantsev family.
It is difficult to call Tetiana Kiriyenko a "professional in her field". This is evidenced by the facts of her biography, which are easily found in the public domain: before being appointed to the post of acting Head of Service Kiriyenko worked in the DPS structure for about 2 years in total, starting back in 2015, and she had never previously held a leadership position.
According to our sources in the DPS of Ukraine, in 90% of cases Tetyana Kiriyenko does not understand what documents she is signing, as she does not have the necessary qualifications. Indirectly, this information is confirmed by the initiation of a criminal case by the SBI against acting head of service According to the case materials obtained by the editors of our publication, during 2022, Kiriyenko, abusing her official position, issued criminal orders to the directors of the departments of financial support and accounting, legal support and personnel support of the DPS of Ukraine, violating the norms of Articles 172 of the Criminal Code and 221 of the Budget Code of the code, which caused damage to the budget in particularly large amounts.
According to the information of our source in the Tax Service, decisions regarding all key appointments in the DPS of Ukraine are made not by Tetyana Kiriyenko, but by Danylo Hetmantsev. He personally conducts interviews with candidates for the position, privately naming the "additional conditions" for the candidate's entry into the position. It is easy to guess about the criteria that Danylo Hetmantsev uses when selecting candidates. The most striking example is the appointment to the post of acting the deputy head of the service, Yevhen Sokur, who had never worked in the DPS before. On the official website of the DPS of Ukraine, in the "Management" section, there are no photos and other information about Sokur: when clicking on his profile, only two words "Information is being formed" are displayed.
However, from open sources, it can be said about Yevgeny Sokur that he was an assistant to People's Deputy Danylo Hetmantsev, and some independent investigative journalists attribute to him control over all corruption streams of the DPS : "Yevgeny Sokur is responsible for blocking invoices throughout the country. He also officially manages excise duties, business fines - therefore, all the most scandalous areas."
Journalists conclude that "Hetmantsev pushes Sokur, and he "covers up" a large-scale scheme of extorting business."
However, the SBI and NABU are actively investigating corrupt officials from the Tax Service appointed by Danylo Hetmantsev, mainly in the regions. Recently, a record number of criminal cases have been opened, schemes of illegal enrichment of DPS managers in the regions have been stopped, schemes of illegal fees from businesses have been liquidated, and the funds have been sent to the budget. As our source in the SBI informs us on the condition of anonymity: "in fact, we are walking in a closed circle, no matter how many times we initiate criminal cases against one corrupt tax official, Hetmantsev appoints a new one in his place, business suffers, and the budget of Ukraine lacks billions of hryvnias."
In order to imagine the extent of the damage caused to the Ukrainian economy, it is enough to look at the number of open criminal cases against the top officials of the DPS since the appointment of Tetyana Kiriyenko to the position of acting head. heads of the Tax Office - more than a hundred of them. Only in the last week, the SBI instituted a criminal case against the leadership of the tax service of the Poltava Region, suspected of illegal enrichment for 6.1 million hryvnias , and in Kyiv, was detained while accepting a bribe.
Ukrainian society also has questions about Danylo Hetmantsev: the facts of his biography in the context of relations with the Russian Federation caused a great resonance in the media, and investigative journalists from BIHUS Info presented evidence of the Hetmantsev family's business in occupied Crimea, after which many Ukrainian media accused Danylo Oleksandrovych of working for the benefit of the Russian Federation.
As our source in the Security Service of Ukraine reports on condition of anonymity: "this does not mean that Hetmantsev is an FSB agent in the classical sense, in fact, in the current conditions of conducting counter-intelligence activities, this is impossible. Another matter is Hetmantsev's influence on the Ukrainian tax system, and accordingly on the economy, which suffers losses not only from military actions, but also from tax collectors, while the budget does not receive the colossal funds needed to finance the front and maintain a stable social situation. Yes, from this point of view, it can be said that Hetmantsev's actions are beneficial to the Russian Federation. An analogy can be drawn here, when the Russians attack the energy infrastructure of Ukraine, pursuing similar goals."
In connection with the objective reduction of financial assistance from Western partners, Ukraine will have to "rely on itself" more and more and switch to "internal sources of financing" coming from taxes and fees. And the words of the US President's special representative, Penny Pritzker, are a message to Ukrainian businesses and officials that changes are coming soon. And these changes should start with the Tax Service of Ukraine.
