Competent Authorities of Ukraine in the Context of Mutual Agreement Procedure under Double Taxation Treaties

The article is dedicated to the identification of the issues related to competent authorities that might impact the efficiency and effectiveness of mutual agreement procedure (MAP) as a tax treaty-related mechanism in Ukraine. In this context, the author applies comparative method based on the provisions of the OECD Model Tax Convention on Income and on Capital (2017) as the primary method but also analyses the impact of the domestic law on the scope of powers and the functions of the competent authorities. There are three issues related to competent authorities that are considered by the author and might have negative impact on MAP as dispute resolution mechanism: (i) the uncertainty of option of delegation of powers of competent authority from the STS of Ukraine to the MoF of Ukraine; (ii) the ambiguity related to the impact of mutual agreements of competent authorities on the activity of other executive bodies of power at the domestic level; (iii) the absence of opportunity of competent authorities to initiate specific case MAP in case of the issuance by the MoF of Ukraine of the general tax consultations before their provisions are resulted in the actions of the tax authorities of Ukraine.