Beleaguered Russian oil firm Yukos revealed on Wednesday that it had been hit with another back-tax bill, this time for an amount of about 107 billion roubles ($3.5 billion), relating to the year 2004.
The claim, received by Yukos on December 27, states that underpayment of taxes, duties and levies amounts to 54 billion roubles, penalties amount to 42 billion roubles, and surcharges are in the order of 11 billion roubles.
According to Yukos, the actual claim for non-paid taxes within the total assessment is 3 billion roubles, with the remainder of the debt owed amounting to RUR 51 billion, for alleged non-payment of VAT on export revenues from the sale of crude oil and refined products by a number of trading companies, which the tax authorities claim are affiliated with Yukos.
Yukos has been fighting tax claims since the end of 2003, and the new tax claim will take the company's total back tax bill to over $30 billion. Many believe that Yukos has been targeted by the Kremlin to thwart the political ambitions of its former chief executive Mikhail Khodorkosvky and to assert more state control over the oil sector.
Yukos was forced to sell its former production unit, Yuganskneftegaz, to state oil company Rosneft in a government-organised auction to pay off some of its tax bill. The unit was sold for $9.4 billion - a price that many observers thought substantially undervalued the company.
The new tax bill has also led to speculation that Yukos may have to sell off some of its remaining production assets.
According to Yukos, the latest tax claim means that the company was charged 8 roubles of taxes per 1 rouble of revenue. With additional, fines, penalties and surcharges, this increases to 15 roubles of tax for every 1 rouble earned, the company claimed.
Yukos's shares suffered on the back of the announcement, falling by as much as 35% from 40 roubles to 21.5 roubles in Wednesday's trading on the Moscow Stock Exchange.
.
Network Tweets
Network BlogsContent
provided by
|
Archive | Resources | Partners | Site Map | Links | Newsletter Archive | Contact | RSS Feeds | About | Syndication | Advertising & Marketing | Recruitment | Terms & Conditions | Privacy & Cookies
Copyright © 2012 - All Rights Reserved - Tax-News.com
IMPORTANT NOTICE: Tax-News.com has taken reasonable care in sourcing and presenting the information contained on this site, but accepts no responsibility for any financial or other loss or damage that may result from its use. In particular, users of the site are advised to take appropriate professional advice before committing themselves to involvement in offshore jurisdictions, offshore trusts or offshore investments.
Write a comment