The article examines the legal principles of tax credit formation in the value added tax system as one of the key elements of the modern fiscal mechanism. It is argued that the tax credit performs not only the function of reducing tax liability, but also indirectly contributes to maintaining the financial stability of taxpayers. It is substantiated that the legal nature of the tax credit consists in temporary indirect crediting of the state by the taxpayer, which is implemented by paying value added tax as part of the price of purchased goods or services. It is proved that the effective implementation of the right to a tax credit is possible only in the presence of clearly drawn up supporting documents, namely tax invoices registered in the Unified Register of Tax Invoices. Special attention is paid to the analysis of Articles 198 and 201 of the Tax Code of Ukraine, which determine the conditions, grounds, terms and procedure for including value added tax amounts in the tax credit. It is concluded that to ensure transparency and legal certainty in the field of tax credit, a clear regulatory regulation of the grounds for its application, forms of documentary confirmation and terms of exercising such a right is necessary. Attention is also drawn to the problem of applying the cash method when determining the moment of occurrence of a tax credit, as well as to issues related to adjusting the tax credit in the event of errors in tax reporting. As a result, conclusions are formulated on improving the current legislation in terms of tax credit formation in order to increase the efficiency of value added tax administration and protect the rights of taxpayers. It is concluded that the legal principles of tax credit formation in the value added tax system constitute a set of regulatory and legal provisions that regulate the procedure, conditions and grounds for including value added tax amounts in the taxpayer’s tax credit. It is proposed to include the following legal principles for the formation of a tax credit in the value-added tax system: 1) the presence of the status of a value-added tax payer - a tax credit is formed exclusively by value-added tax payers registered in accordance with the established procedure in accordance with the provisions of the Code of Ukraine; 2) the tax credit includes the amounts of tax paid/accrued in the event of transactions specified in the exhaustive list in Article 198 of the Code of Ukraine; 3) documentary confirmation - the basis for the formation of a tax credit is a properly executed tax invoice registered in the Unified Register of Tax Invoices, as well as other documents specified by law (customs declarations, invoices, etc.); 4) the tax credit for the reporting period is determined based on the contractual (contractual) value of goods/ services and consists of the amounts of taxes accrued (paid) by the taxpayer at a rate determined from the tax base in accordance with the procedure specified by the Code of Ukraine.
O. V. Hlukh (Tue,) studied this question.