TAX PLANNING AND THE NEED FOR ITS NORMATIVE-LEGAL REGULATION IN THE LEGISLATION IN ORDER TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN LEGITIMATE TAX BEHAVIOR OF TAXPAYERS AND TAX OFFENSES

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of tax planning as the main tool of tax liability management and the necessity of its detailed normative-legal regulation in the legislation in order to distinguish between legitimate tax behavior of taxpayers and tax offenses. In the conditions of globalization of the economy, constant changes in tax legislation and practice of law enforcement, the issues of tax planning acquire special importance for the effective organization of financial and economic activities of physical and legal entities. Tax planning by its very structure is a rather complex behavior of a taxpayer, as it includes a number of different actions related to the taxpayer's assessment of all possible variants of his expected tax liabilities depending on the decisions taken by him in the course of his financial and economic activities. The essence of tax planning is the development of a set of measures aimed at the development and adoption of managerial decisions in the field of finance of the organization in order to optimize its tax expenditures by legal methods.  However, despite the opportunity to use legal methods of tax planning, taxpayers use «borderline» methods of tax planning, which are on the verge of a tax offense, or illegal methods to optimize tax liabilities. Based on the analysis of international and national tax legislation, as well as practices regulating issues of legal and illegal behavior of the taxpayer in the implementation of tax planning of its financial and economic activities, the authors have analyzed the types of tax behavior used by the taxpayer in the planning of its financial and economic activities, identified the peculiarities and characteristics of legal and illegal methods of tax planning, as well as determined the definition of legal and illegal methods of tax planning. In the course of the study, the authors proposed recommendations for the improvement of tax legislation.