| Abstract [eng] |
Taxes are the main source of material supplying of the state and realization of its functions. The correct tax calculation and payment is a necessary prerequisite for the state budget collection. However, the legal obligation to pay taxes doesn’t guarantee that all taxpayers obey this requirement. Taxpayers often deliberately incorrectly interpret the tax laws in order to cover tax avoidance by this interpretation. It causes serious damage to the public finances, while the honest taxpayers fall into a worse competitive position than tax avoiders. Therefore, the state regulation of tax relations recognizes as legitimate such taxpayer’s behavior, which not only meet the letter of the law, but also the principles of taxation, tax law purposes and meaning. The principle of substance over form is one of the legal measures to ensure the correct tax calculation and payment. The Master's thesis is dedicated to the general tax anti-avoidance rule – the substance over form principle – and its application in calculating taxes. The main problem identified in the work as how to determine, without prejudice to the rights and legitimate expectations of the taxpayer, tax avoidance in taxpayer's activities as the basis for the application of substance over form principle. In the paper the author examines the principles of taxation and its legal regulation, the institute of tax avoidance and system of general anti-avoidance rules, highlights the criteria to distinguish tax evasion from tax planning (optimization) and tax evasion, provides the legal origins of the substance over form principle, regulation of foreign law and comparative analysis, revealed the legal nature and content of the substance over form principle and Lithuanian law peculiarities on it, evaluated the quality of the existing legal regulatory and development needs. The author also has analyzed the standards of application of the substance over form principle formulated in European Court of Justice and Lithuanian administrative courts case law, discussed and evaluated the most significant judicial precedents applying above mentioned anti-avoidance rule. The methods of historical, linguistic, systematic, comparative, logical analysis are being used in the paper. Presumably, the survey results could be used to further development of the scientific doctrine of anti-avoidance rules in Lithuanian tax law, as well as educate practitioners participating in legal proceedings for tax disputes. |
