The schemes applied by Basic Element of Oleg Deripaska in 2003 enabled it to overestimate the costs by nearly 300 million ruble and trim the profit tax base.
Photo: Alexander Miridonov
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The Basic Argument
The battle of tax officers with fly-by-night firms has reached another height. After overwhelming such companies as MIAN and Svyaznoi, the tax authorities have managed to turn around the trial vs Basic Element (Bazel) of Oleg Deripaska. The claims root in the bill-of-exchange procedures and fly-by-night companies, and first time in the court practice a bank that serviced the jobbery payments has been attracted to trial. According to analysts, the purpose to attain is probably to clear the bank system in the crisis environment.
Russia’s tax bodies secured yesterday an interim victory in the tax case vs Basic Element (Bazel) of Oleg Deripaska. The claims date back to 2003 and 2004 and amount to roughly 170 million ruble. The Moscow Tax Inspection No. 1 presented them July 12, 2007, but the company appealed the lawsuit. The Moscow Arbitration Court invalidated the resolution of tax authorities March 21 and the 9th Arbitration Court of Appeal sustained that judgment July 23.
But tax officers responded by a writ of appeal, and the Federal Arbitration Court of the Moscow District upheld the better part of it yesterday. That court falsified the judgment for the case portion related to roughly 107 million ruble delivered in Basic Element’s favor and forwarded files to the Moscow Arbitration Court for repeated consideration.
The portion in question relates to the schemes that Basic Element applied far back in 2003 to overestimate the costs by nearly 300 million ruble and trim the profit tax base. Then, the company was raising money with a few firms (Ecoline-K, Endeavor Prom, Uniset), buying bills of exchanges of one of them, swapping those bills for the ones issued by another firm and using them to pay off the debts.
The settlement was effected during one and the same day through the companies’ accounts with MDM Bank. Very soon, the firms involved in transactions ceased to provide tax reports. So, the tax officers reasoned the transactions with bills of exchanges weren’t profit raising and the costs of Basic Element could be hardly viewed economically justified. In the company, however, they are in no yielding mood, claiming they have breached no tax laws and promising to proceed with the court battle.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 28, 2008
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