CURRENT CHALLENGES OF LEGAL REGULATION OF EXCISE TAXATION OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES IN THE CONDITIONS OF HARMONIZATION OF NATIONAL LEGISLATION WITH EU NORMS

The article is devoted to a comparative analysis of certain norms of the Tax Code of Ukraine, which regulate the general rules of excise tax on alcoholic beverages and ethyl alcohol, with legal provisions contained in a number of legislative acts of the European Union, namely Council Directive 92/83/EEC and Council Directive 92 /84/EEC. In the aspect of European integration processes, urgent issues related to the non-compliance of the composition of tax legislation with some international legal standards are emphasized. The opinion that the excise tax in today's conditions is designed to perform the role of an effective fiscal and regulatory instrument is clarified. Only in the case of a balanced state of these two functions of the tax is it possible to bring the market of excise goods, namely the production of alcoholic beverages, out of the shadows. Achieving such a goal for Ukraine is possible thanks to the construction of an updated system of tax regulation of the excise tax on alcohol, which will first of all take into account the European experience of making this payment. In the course of the conducted research, it was found that some norms of the PKU are subject to improvement, which necessitates the introduction of changes and additions to them. Therefore, it was established that in order to implement the provisions of the Association Agreement with the EU and in the process of fulfilling the requirements of the acquis communautaire, the domestic legislator should focus on taking the following measures: 1) eliminating the shortcomings of the conceptual and categorical apparatus in the field of taxation of alcoholic products by changing the composition of the categories available in the legislation and adding new ones; 2) updating the list of excise goods related to the circulation of alcoholic products; 3) following the norms of the Directives regarding the establishment of rates for goods of each of the categories, from which it follows that the excise duty must be handled taking into account such a measurement value as a hectoliter and by clarifying the actual alcoholic strength of the product; 4) implementation of additional mechanisms of tax benefits for taxpayers; 5) outlining a unified approach to determining the tax base. Separately, the opinion was expressed that Ukraine took concrete steps on the way to the implementation of European legal prescriptions, but they were primarily related to the increase in excise tax rates, which caused the threat of increasing the risks of shadow trade.