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BES seizes more than 450 vehicles of major tobacco distributor
KYIV. Feb 28 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Detectives of the Bureau of Economic Security of Ukraine (BES) initiated the seizure of more than 450 vehicles and minibuses of one of the country’s largest distributors of tobacco products, the property was seized to ensure compensation for damages of UAH 270 million caused to the state by the illegal activities of the company.
As reported on the Facebook page of the BES on Tuesday, the officials of the mentioned company in 2020-2021 recorded the sale of tobacco products to a number of enterprises with signs of fictitious.
“The total value of the excisable goods sold is UAH 1.17 billion. In fact, there was no sale of tobacco products to these companies. In fact, the sale took place without accounting for cash, including through a network of retail stores. Accordingly, the company concealment of such business transactions did not reflect them in the accounting and financial statements of the enterprise,” the BES said in the report.
The Bureau said that with the help of such transactions, the distributor of tobacco products deliberately evaded income tax and excise tax, which led to the actual non-receipt of more than UAH 270 million to the state budget.
In addition, BES found that the company owns more than 450 vehicles, which were probably acquired illegally after deliberate tax evasion and were used to transport the mentioned tobacco products.
“To preserve physical evidence and prevent illegal actions with vehicles, and in the future to ensure compensation for the damage caused to the state, BES detectives sent a request for the seizure of the distributor’s movable property, which the court granted,” the Bureau said.
Earlier, on January 16, law enforcement officers notified the CEO of the company, the largest distributor of tobacco products in Ukraine, of deliberate tax evasion, without providing other data about it.
On the same day, the Tedis Ukraine distribution company said that it considers groundless and in no way legally grounded the suspicion of its CEO Taras Korniachenko of evading income tax and excise tax for over UAH 270 million. Thus, Tedis Ukraine confirmed that the suspicion of the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) was raised against it.
As reported, the PGO in January notified the CEO of the company – the largest distributor of tobacco products – on suspicion of deliberate tax evasion. According to the prosecutor’s office, during 2020 and the first half of 2021, the company recored the sale of tobacco products to three enterprises with signs of fictitiousness for a total of UAH 1.17 billion, while the actual sale of products did not take place. In the future, these enterprises, with signs of fictitiousness in tax reporting, documented the sale of other goods – meat products and fuel.
Thus, the head of the tobacco company is accused of deliberately evading income tax and excise tax to the state budget for over UAH 270 million.
In turn, Tedis said on its website that the criminal case initiated against its CEO concerns a number of business entities with which the company had financial and business transactions in 2020. As part of this case, BES asked the company for documents confirming financial and economic relations with counterparties, which Tedis provided.
“It should be noted that at the end of 2021, the Southern Department of the Office of Large Payers of the State Tax Service of Ukraine conducted a scheduled tax audit of the company’s compliance with tax and budget legislation for the period 2017-2020. As part of the tax audit, there were no claims from the inspection authorities / comments on the relationship between the company and its counterparties, including those appearing in the criminal case,” the distributor said in the official statement.