Tatyana Kutsenko

In this study, the main attention is paid to the problem of “shadowing” the Ukrainian economy in the crisis period. Theoretical approaches to determining the functions of taxes and factors affecting real tax revenues were studied. A scientific study was carried out which would reveal the motives for the behavior of taxpayers, which are explicitly or implicitly laid in the basis of approaches to the formation of the mechanism of taxation and tax policy of the state. Therefore, we tried to determine the reasons why the behavior of each individual taxpayer is completely determined by his individual rational choice, determined by the desire to maximize his own benefit, i.e. does not depend on the choice of the tax behavior of other agents and the effects that individual taxpayers have on each other. Our results show that the reduction of transaction costs in the legal sector of the economy and the creation of conditions that impede the illegal conduct of transactions are not sufficient conditions for the implementation of formal taxation rules.