| State claims to Yukos exceeded $10 billion While the whole world was watching the tragic events in Beslan, the Ministry of Taxes and Duties methodically continued to work according to its schedule of attack on YUKOS. On Friday afternoon it became finally clear that the company would not be able to pay the treasury. On September 2, the Ministry of Taxes and Duties presented Yukos with claims for 2001 in the amount of 119.9 billion rubles. and offered to satisfy them in one working day. After this, the amount of the company's debts to the state practically grew to its current capitalization and exceeded the estimated market valuation of the main oil-producing asset of the holding - Yuganskneftegaz. In addition, on Friday, YUKOS managers were once again clearly demonstrated that resistance is not only useless, but will come out “more expensive.”
Less than a few hours after YUKOS publicly announced on Thursday that it was ready to fully satisfy tax claims for 2000 by the end of September, the Tax Ministry signed a letter to the company with a proposal to voluntarily transfer 119.9 billion rubles to the budget in one working day . tax debt, penalties and fines for 2001. At the same time, the tax authorities recalculated their initial claims to YUKOS dated July 1, increasing them by almost 22 billion rubles. Interestingly, the re-inspection was carried out in response to the company's objections to the results of the first inspection for 2001. Taking into account the unsatisfied demands of the Ministry of Taxes for 2000-2001 in the amount of 6.1 billion dollars and the Prosecutor General’s Office’s accusations against the general director of YUKOS-FBC Irina Golub for the theft of 2.6 billion dollars, YUKOS’ “debt” to the state came close to the value of the company. According to the results of Friday trading on the RTS, the once most valuable Russian company was worth $8.9 billion. If we take into account the $2 billion that YUKOS has already paid for 2000, then the claims brought by government agencies against the company amounted to $10.7 billion. In addition, the Ministry of Taxation has three more reserve trump cards - checks of the fiscal discipline of the holding for 2002 and the first half of 2003, as well as its main producing subsidiaries - Yuganskneftegaz and Tomskneft, which are planned to be put up for sale.
The violations charged against YUKOS exactly correspond to those discovered by the Ministry of Taxes and Taxes during an inspection in 2000. “The company committed deliberate actions to artificially register turnover with oil and petroleum products through specially created organizations registered in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and cities that illegally provided additional tax benefits,” the ministry said in a statement and noted that YUKOS created and registered organizations in Mordovia, Evenkia, Kalmykia, closed administrative-territorial entities, the city of Baikonur. The decision asks YUKOS to pay taxes (including penalties and fines) in the total amount of 119,887,190,674 rubles. YUKOS received the documents in the middle of the day on September 3, and the deadline for voluntary payment of this amount to the budget is indicated until the end of this date.
YUKOS representatives traditionally promise that they will appeal the decision of the Tax Ministry, although they are well aware that they have no chance of winning the case. “Of course, the company does not currently have such an amount of cash and cannot repay it in less than half a day, as required by the Tax Ministry,” Yukos press secretary Alexander Shadrin said last Friday. - We consider the decision of the Ministry of Taxes and Taxes to be illegal and will appeal it by all available legal means. We continue to believe that we conducted our business in strict accordance with the tax laws in effect at the time.”
Answering a question from the Petroleum Information Agency whether the company considers it likely that the courts will expedite the consideration of Yukos’s objections, since a similar legal dispute over tax debts for 2000 was already won by the Ministry of Taxes and Taxes, Mr. Shadrin said: “We cannot exclude this, since there are precedents in the case YUKOS are being created every day.” However, law in Russia is not based on precedents, as in the USA or Great Britain, so formally the company’s lawyers have every opportunity to extend the trial for the maximum period.
The fiscal department has the right to directly write off YUKOS funds to pay off tax debts, but most likely, as in the case of the 2000 audit, the Tax Ministry will seek confirmation of its results in court. The statement of claim will apparently be submitted to the Moscow Arbitration Court today. Representatives of the Ministry of Taxes and Taxes were unavailable for comment over the weekend.
The YUKOS stock market reacted stoically to the events. Although immediately after the news appeared, the company's securities lost about 4% of their value, by the end of the trading day they completely recovered this drop and even grew by 1.5%. Alexey GRIVACHS |
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