Tax audit / factual DPS inspection

A tax audit, and especially a factual audit by the State Tax Service, almost always means the risk of fines, disputes over cash registers and further appeals against tax notice‑decisions for businesses. Below is a ready‑to‑use analytical article without tables, covering all the necessary points and focusing on why short consultations and support services sell so well.

Tax audit / factual DPS audit

A factual audit by the DPS is one of the most sensitive forms of tax control for businesses, especially for retail, HoReCa, services and sole proprietors working with cash or cash registers (RRO/PRRO). Unlike a documentary audit, here the tax authority arrives without prior notice, works directly at the place of business and checks not only documents but also the actual behaviour of the business: settlement transactions, the presence of fiscal receipts, cash discipline, staff employment and the actual cash balance. That is why such an audit is often a stressful and conflict‑prone episode for an entrepreneur, where every mistake in communication or in admitting inspectors can be very costly.

Businesses often underestimate a factual audit, treating it as “just a routine visit from the tax office”. In reality, it is a full‑scale control measure with concrete legal consequences: the audit report may become the basis for a tax notice‑decision, financial sanctions, cash‑register fines and, in some cases, further in‑depth audits. Therefore, demand for short consultations and fast support in such cases is consistently high: the entrepreneur needs not theory but an immediate action plan for the first minutes after the inspectors appear.

Tax officers have arrived: what to do in the first minutes

The phrase “the tax inspectors have arrived — what should I do?” is one of the most common in crisis practice, because a factual audit usually starts suddenly: inspectors show up at the point of sale, café, shop, warehouse or office and immediately move to control actions. At this moment, it is crucial not to panic and not to allow uncontrolled communication with the auditors.

The first step is to verify the inspectors’ authority: ask for their IDs, the audit notice and the order issued by the head of the DPS, and make sure that the grounds set by the Tax Code exist and that the documents and address are properly completed. If key details are missing, the grounds are unclear or the paperwork contains errors, this already creates a basis for challenging the audit results later.

The second step is to involve a lawyer or attorney immediately, even if the audit seems “technical”. In a factual audit, a great deal depends on staff behaviour: who said what, who let the inspectors in, which documents were provided, whether objections were recorded and whether the circumstances were correctly described in the report. A short consultation at the start often helps avoid serious procedural mistakes, while on‑site support helps to properly formalise the company’s position.

The third aspect is internal discipline. Employees must follow a simple rule: do not argue, do not sign documents they do not understand without reading, do not give hasty explanations “on their own behalf” and do not try to “fix” anything retroactively. For the tax authority, any chaotic behaviour is a signal that the business has problems, and for the business it is a risk of recording violations that will be difficult to dispute later.

Factual DPS audit: what exactly the tax office looks at

In practice, the main focus of the tax authority during a factual audit is compliance with the rules on settlement transactions. Inspectors check whether RRO/PRRO is used correctly, whether fiscal receipts are issued, whether the product range is properly reflected, whether the actual cash on hand corresponds to the cash‑register data, whether shifts are opened and closed correctly, whether there is a connection to the DPS server and whether supporting documentation is properly maintained. In many cases, the audit starts with a test purchase, after which tax officers immediately record violations on the spot.

Another major risk area is labour relations and cash discipline: the tax authority looks at the actual presence of workers at the site, their employment status, documents for goods, stock records and whether cash on hand matches daily revenue; even “minor technical issues” for a small business are often treated as full‑fledged violations with financial consequences.

Here, prior preparation is especially valuable: a business with internal staff instructions, properly configured RRO/PRRO, organised documentation and a pre‑agreed legal contact gets through factual audits much more calmly. This is why short consultations before opening a new location and periodic risk audits are so effective — the entrepreneur receives a quick, practical solution that immediately reduces the likelihood of fines.

Cash‑register fines: why they are a key problem after an audit

“RRO fine” is one of the most frequent requests because violations of settlement‑transaction rules are what factual audits most often detect. Typical grounds for sanctions include sales without a fiscal receipt, failure to issue a receipt to the customer, errors in receipt details, use of an unregistered or incorrectly configured RRO/PRRO, breaches of shift‑management rules or discrepancies between actual cash and the cash‑register data.

The amounts of such fines can be substantial, especially when the DPS treats the violation as repeated. Public guidance and practical materials on cash‑register audits note that certain violations are penalised as a percentage of the value of goods sold, and repeated violations significantly increase the financial burden. Thus, even a single incorrectly processed transaction can lead to disproportionate losses for the business.

In practice, not every cash‑register fine is indisputable: the tax authority often relies on a formalistic approach — cash‑register data, the inspector’s conclusions and an isolated episode without a comprehensive analysis of the circumstances. Court practice shows that DPS approaches to qualifying violations and “repeat offences”, as well as the amounts of increased sanctions, can be successfully challenged, so once you receive an audit report or tax notice‑decision you should not accept the fine as inevitable; first, you need to assess the legality of the audit, how the violation was recorded and whether the fine was calculated correctly.

Appealing a tax notice‑decision: when and how to act

After an audit, the central document for a business is the tax notice‑decision. It triggers the real dispute stage, since it formalises the amount of tax liability or fine that the DPS considers payable. If an entrepreneur or company disagrees with the audit findings, they must act quickly and systematically: time limits for appeals in tax disputes are short, and missing procedural deadlines can deprive them of effective protection.

Administrative appeal involves filing a complaint with the higher‑level DPS within 10 business days of receiving the notice‑decision, in written or electronic form. Filing such a complaint suspends enforcement of the contested tax liability during consideration, and the amount is treated as unagreed until the procedure is completed. This is a crucial tool because it gives the business time and a procedural pause to prepare a full legal position.

Judicial appeal requires even greater attention to deadlines: if the taxpayer first filed an administrative complaint, a lawsuit to cancel the notice‑decision must be filed within one month after completion of the administrative procedure, in accordance with the special timeframe in the Tax Code. “Taking a few months to think about it” effectively means losing the right to judicial protection.

Successful challenges to tax notice‑decisions are usually built along several lines: assessing the lawfulness of the audit itself (grounds, access, procedural compliance), the way the violation was recorded (sufficiency and accuracy of evidence, correct application of the Law on cash registers and the Tax Code) and the proportionality and accuracy of the fine calculation.

Why short consultations and support sell so well

A tax audit is not a “theoretical future risk” but a situation where the problem is already here: inspectors arrive, draw up a report, record RRO violations, hand over a tax notice‑decision and you urgently need to know what to do next. In such circumstances, short consultations and rapid support work best: businesses need a fast, practical solution, not long discussions about tax theory.

An express consultation at the audit stage is highly valuable because it helps correctly guide the client at a critical point: whether to admit inspectors, which documents to show, what to write in objections to the report, whether it makes sense to challenge the fine and which deadlines must not be missed. Full‑scale support then logically follows — from analysing the audit report to preparing an administrative complaint or a lawsuit.

For legal practice, low‑entry products work particularly well here: express consultations, fast document reviews, on‑site support during factual audits, preparation of objections to the audit report and turnkey tax notice‑decision appeals. The client receives a clear, fast and measurable result, while the lawyer gains a natural entry point into a deeper tax dispute and long‑term business support.

If you face issues related to a tax audit, factual DPS audit, cash‑register fines or appeals against a tax notice‑decision, you must act quickly and in a procedurally correct way not to lose your chance of effective protection; you should promptly seek professional legal assistance from WINNER Law Firm.

Author: Ihor Yasko, Managing Partner at WINNER Law Firm, PhD in Law.