Control over Fuel Turnover in Ukraine Tightened

The Cabinet of Ministers has approved the procedure of maintenance of the Uniform State Register of Fuel Flow Meters and Fuel Level Meters for Excise Warehouses, which becomes effective starting from January 1, 2018.

The resolution was adopted at the meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers held on November 22.

The State Fiscal Service as the supervisory authority will administer the Register. In this case, according to the current revision of the Tax Code the operating mode of excise warehouse that should be mandatory equipped with fuel flow meters and fuel level meters is applicable to all oil bases, storage and sales sites of petroleum products (gas stations, natural gas stations, gas pumping stations, etc.) and not only to the production enterprises.

The draft document was prepared by representatives of the Ministry of Finance, State Fiscal Service, Ministry for Fuel and Energy, experts of the Metrology Institute, manufacturers and importers of metering devices jointly with the Committee on Issues of Tax and Customs Policy of the Ukrainian Oil & Gas Association.

In our opinion, the new rules allow building an efficient automated system of accounting and control of the turnover and balances of fuel nationwide, which will relieve the law-abiding market participants from extra tax inspections, but draw attention of controlling authorities to the illegal market segment.

One of the proposals most actively pursued by members of the Ukrainian Oil & Gas Association is the gradual transition to the automated transfer of fuel flow and level metering data to the State Fiscal Service. At the initial stage, the input of data of metering devices could be done manually, and the transition to automated data transfer would be done in different periods depending on capacities of excise warehouses.

For instance, starting from July 1, 2018 the data transferring should be mandatory for tanks with the volume of over 20 thousand cubic metres, from January 1, 2019 — with the volume of 1~20 thousand cubic metres and from July 1, 2019 — with the volume of less than 1 thousand cubic metres.

The agenda of the Tax Committee of the Association includes introduction of further changes to the Tax Code envisaging synchronising the data of fuel flow meters and fuel level meters with the operating System of Electronic Administration of Fuel Sales (SEAFS).