Tax as a finance law category

Abstract

Background. Democratization of the society of the last decades encourages taxpayers to actively carry out the tax obligation, initiate the introduction of taxes and even pay taxes voluntarily. Prior to the adoption of the Tax Code of Ukraine «tax»had been defined as a source of the budget and state funds, attention was focused on forced feature of tax.
The aim of the article is to explore a variety of approaches to the definition and features of tax category as a finance law category, determine tax principles, suggest ways to improve legislation in this area.
Materials and methods. Dialectical, formal and dogmatic, comparative and legal, as well as structural and system analysis methods were used during the study.
Results. The article is devoted to the research of tax as a financial law category, definition of the principles on which it is based. Features that allow separate tax from other mandatory payments to public funds have been considered. Also in the article attention has been paid to the study of such category as «tax obligation». It has been proved that the tax obligation includes three groups of responsibilities: concerning accounting (registration), accrual and payment and declaration (reporting). Amendments to the Tax Code of Ukraine regarding determination of tax obligation and imposing tax on a taxpayer have been proposed. Special attention has been paid to the principle of participation of the people as the sole source of power in the financial activities of the state and forms of direct democracy that people can implement in taxes. The emphasis is on identifying ways to prevent infringement of the principle of stability provided by the Tax Code of Ukraine.
Conclusion. The result of the study is the author’s definition of tax. Amendments to the Budget and Tax Code of Ukraine have been offered.