Business news from Ukraine

Detectives of the Bureau of Economic Security of Ukraine (BES) initiated the seizure of more than 450 cars and vans one of the largest distributors of tobacco products in the country, property seized to ensure the compensation of damages of 270 million, caused to the state, the illegal activities of the company.
As reported on the Facebook page of the agency on Tuesday, officials of the said company in 2020-2021 documented the sale of tobacco products for a number of companies with signs of fictitiousness.
“The total value of excisable goods sold is 1.17 billion UAH. In fact, there was no sale of tobacco products to these companies. In fact the sales were made out of accounting for cash, including through a network of retail stores. Accordingly, the company did not reflect such business transactions in the company’s accounting and financial statements in order to conceal them,” the BEB report says.
The department underlined that by means of such transactions the tobacco products distributor intentionally avoided paying income tax and excise tax, which caused the actual non-payment of more than UAH 270 mln to the state budget.
In addition, the BEB found that the company owns more than 450 cars that were probably acquired illegally as a result of deliberate tax evasion and were used to transport the mentioned tobacco products.
“In order to preserve physical evidence and prevent unlawful acts with the vehicles, and to further ensure compensation for damages caused to the state, BEB detectives filed a motion to seize the distributor’s movable property, which the court granted,” the Bureau said in a statement.
Earlier, on January 16, the law enforcers informed that the general director of the largest tobacco products distributor in Ukraine is suspected of deliberate tax evasion without giving any other information about the distributor.
On the same day, the distribution company “Tedis Ukraine” said that it considers groundless and in no way legally unfounded suspicion of its general director Taras Korniyachenko in evasion of income tax and excise tax totaling more than 270 million UAH. Thus, “Tedis Ukraine” confirmed that the suspicion of the Office of the Prosecutor General was brought against it.
As reported, the Office of the Attorney General in January notified the CEO of the company – the largest distributor of tobacco products in suspicion of deliberate tax evasion. According to the prosecutor’s office, during 2020 and the first half of 2021, the company documented the sale of tobacco products to three companies with signs of fictitiousness in the total amount of 1.17 billion UAH, while the actual sale of products did not take place. Subsequently these companies with signs of fictitiousness in the tax records documented the sale of other goods – meat products and fuel.
Thus, the head of the tobacco company is accused of deliberate evasion of state budget profit tax and excise tax totaling more than 270 million UAH.
In turn, Tedis stated on its website that the criminal case initiated against its CEO concerns a number of business entities with which the company had financial and economic transactions in 2020. As part of the said case, the BEB requested documents from the company 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 planned tax audit of the company’s compliance with tax and budget legislation for the period 2017-2020. Within the framework of the tax audit, there were no claims/comments on the relationship between the company and its counterparties, including those involved in the criminal case,” the distributor said in an official statement.
“Tedis Ukraine” is one of the largest Ukrainian distribution companies with a regional network of 32 structural units and about 45 thousand retail outlets. The company had 2,300 employees before the full-scale Russian invasion.