Yukos created a network of interdependent companies… “with the purpose to economize on taxes”. The website Prigovor.ru reminds its readers of what happened on April 21, 2005.
On this day 18 years ago, on April 21, 2005, the Arbitration Court of Moscow confirmed the legitimacy of the decision of the Russian Federal Tax Service on additional charge of tax arrears for 2003 on the Oil company Yukos amounting to 170 billion rubles. Moreover, during the consideration of the materials of the case, the court, partially, fulfilled the complaint of the oil company asking to consider the claims to it from the part of the Tax Service as illegal, and lowered the sum of the additional charges by 78 million rubles, that makes only 0.05% of the whole sum of the tax arrears for 2003. However, the Arbitration Court recovered from Yukos 68.9 billion rubles of tax penalties for the same period.
(See also the article “On this day, Yukos was faced with taxes hidden in 2003”).
The initial decision on the additional charges on the Oil Cpmpany Yukos the tax arrears for 2003 was delivered by the inspection of the Federal Tax Service as early as in December 2004. From 170 billion rubles, 86.2 billion rubles made up the main debt (specifically the non paid taxes), 14.8 billion – fines, and the rest – penalties.
A NETWORK OF SHELL COMPANIES
As explained at that time Yelena Alexandrova, a representative of the Federal Tax Service, Yukos had created a network of interdependent companies, registered in the regions with preferential tax treatment, in particular, in the Republic of Mordovia.
(See also the article “Beneficial locus from Yukos. Six shell firms under the supervision of Dubov and “bloody senator” Nevzlin”).
“The Purpose of this scheme was to try to economize on taxes, and the means obtained thanks to this method, were transferred to “The Foundation for Financial Support and Development of the Oil Company Yukos”, said Alexandrova.
(See also the article “On this day, "tax skeletons" dropped out of the Yukos closets”. Tax “optimization” worth $6.1 billion. Yukos affiliates registered on lost passports and the article “On this day, Yukos was retracting its “affiliates” in order not to pay taxes”).
It is difficult to recognize successful for the lawyers of the oil company the efforts to call in question the position of the Federal Tax Service in courts. The most part of the arguments of the defense came down to statements that the tax inspection, according to the defense, “did not proved the interdependence of Yukos with firms on which additional taxes were charged”. Yet, all indicators of the “connection” and “interdependency” - both direct and indirect – were being proved by documents and witnesses’ testimonies. All these materials were collected by specialists of the Tax Service, despite an open obstruction and counteraction from the leadership of the company.
“Nevertheless, the specialists of the Tax Service, who carried out the inspection in several Russian towns, could summarize the picture of Yukos tax machinations and presented it in court, and there proved that the leadership of the oil company had systematically used the schemes of tax evasion. That is why, in the autumn of 2005, the Federal Arbitration Court of the Moscow District, having considered a yet another complaint of lawyers of the Oil Company Yukos, confirmed the legality of the ruling pertaining to the additional charges of tax on the company Yukos for the year 2003 amounting to 170 billion rubles”, notes the website Prigovor.ru.
(See the previous article “On this day, the District Court of The Hague sent away swindlers from Yukos”. “The International Arbitration did not have the jurisdiction to consider the litigation between the Russian Federation and former shareholders of the Oil Company Yukos. The website Prigovor.ru reminds its readers of what happened on April 20, 2016).
