On the Issue of the Prerequisites for the Identification And Structuring of Tax Law as an Independent Branch

The structuring of the legal system of Ukraine should be based on objective grounds for distinguishing sectoral formations which, although interrelated, nevertheless remain autonomous. The objectivity of structuring an integral legal system must rely on the unconditional consideration of the dynamic aspects of the development of social relations that the legal system is designed to regulate. Their evolution determines the adjustment and, in some cases, the radical transformation of the content and structure of legal branches, their reconfiguration, and the emergence of new ones. Ignoring such dynamic aspects of the development of law inevitably leads to manifestations of stagnation, turning legal norms into obstacles to social development. Given that tax regulation belongs to the sphere of public-law regulation, it is evident that it is based on imperative prescriptions. In this context, a question arises: how does the method of financial-law regulation differ from tax-law regulation, and does this difference constitute grounds for emphasizing a certain independence of tax law? First, within such a framework, it would be entirely logical to raise the question of the grounds for the sectoral existence of financial law itself, since it also employs the imperative method, as do all other branches of public law (administrative, criminal, etc.). Second, the method of tax-law regulation is characterized by specific features that are not inherent in the fundamental principles of financial-law regulation. The nature and specific characteristics of the subject matter of tax-law regulation are determined by several factors. First, it concerns the regulation of the behavior of participants in tax legal relations at the stage of forming budget revenues through tax payments. Second, tax regulation is based on the concept of a tax obligation, the fulfillment of which is guaranteed by imperative instruments of state coercion. Third, tax relations have an organizational and property-based nature, where the recipient of revenues from taxes and fees is, in fact, also their organizer. Fourth, tax relations, which constitute the subject of tax-law regulation, are predominantly monetary in nature. A tax is money that must be transferred to the relevant treasury account of the budget. At the same time, this does not exclude the existence of certain property relations within the sphere of tax-law regulation (tax lien, administrative seizure of property, etc.). However, the latter constitutes an intermediate stage in regulating the fulfillment of a tax obligation, which necessarily presupposes the transformation of property into money and its crediting to the appropriate account.

tax law; tax legislation; subject of tax law; method of tax law; Tax Code of Ukraine; tax procedures; tax liability