Conceptual foundations of tax risk of business entities

The article purpose of is to substantiate the conceptual foundations of the tax risk of business entities based on the essence definition. Based on the development of approaches to the interpretation of the «tax risk» concept by foreign scientists, a content triad has been determined. These are economic risk, uncertainty of tax legislation and inaccurate processing of information. Based on the development of approaches to interpretation by domestic scientists, the most common approaches to interpretation were determined. These are four scientific approaches. Tax risk economic category. Tax risk is the probability of incurring losses, primarily financial. Tax risk is the probability of deterioration of the financial situation. Tax risk is the unpredictability of tax relations. The essence of the tax risk of the business entity is substantiated. The tax risk of a business entity is an objective phenomenon of the business entity’s activity, which is realized as the probability of a potential threat of incurring losses (financial, reputational, etc.) due to the tax relations subjective component. On the part of the state, the tax risk is formed by the inconsistency of tax legislation, changes in tax legislation in the direction of increasing the tax burden, cancellation of tax benefits; lack of independent taxpayer service. On the part of the economic entity, the tax risk is formed by non-compliance with the requirements of tax legislation in order to reduce the tax burden or avoid the obligation to pay taxes, insufficient qualification of the staff performing tax assessment and payment, lack of effective tax planning). Key words: taxes, tax risk, taxation, tax legislation, tax evasion, risky taxpayer.