The Bureau of Economic Security (BES) has ensured that the state budget receives more than UAH 13.4 million in taxes refunded by a Lviv-based holding company that includes 60 restaurants and retail outlets, the bureau’s press service reports.
According to the report, the investigation found that the holding’s employees received their salaries in two installments, one of which was paid through shadow registers. During the pre-trial investigation, the BES detectives conducted a series of searches, interrogated the company’s employees and collected the necessary evidence.
In addition, the Bureau initiated a tax audit to determine the correctness of the company’s tax and fee payments. As a result of the audit, an additional UAH 13.4 million in taxes and fees were accrued, the press release said.
“The company’s director pleaded guilty at the pre-trial investigation stage. The company has paid to the state budget the damages caused to the state in full. The person involved in the criminal case was served a notice of suspicion of committing criminal offenses under Part 2 of Article 212, Part 3 of Article 212-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine,” the Bureau said.
According to the BES, the case has been sent to court. The pre-trial investigation was conducted by detectives of the BES territorial office in Lviv region. Prosecutors of the Lviv Regional Prosecutor’s Office are in charge of the proceedings.
As reported, on October 17, 2023, the BES announced the exposure of a large-scale tax evasion scheme in Lviv by a holding company that includes 60 restaurants and retail outlets. On the same day, Yuriy Nazaruk, co-owner of the !Fest holding, reported that the BES and the Security Service of Ukraine conducted searches at one of the holding’s sites in Lviv. According to him, the searches were related to the holding’s business activities, but there were no requests or appeals from law enforcement officers in connection with criminal cases.
The !Fest holding was founded in 2007. It develops a network of creative restaurants, cafes, shops and real estate in Ukraine. Its owners are Andriy Khudo, Yuriy Nazaruk, and Dmitry Gerasimov.
PIN-UP Ukraine paid UAH 3.4 billion to the state budget in 2023. Tax payments included income tax, single tax, tax on winnings, personal income tax, military duty, unified social contribution, as well as an annual license fee of UAH 23.4 million. The company remains the largest taxpayer in Ukraine in the gambling sector.
“PIN-UP Ukraine is the largest taxpayer among the representatives of the legal gambling business in Ukraine. Despite the martial law in the country, we continue to operate and make all necessary payments to the budget of Ukraine in a timely manner. Honesty and transparency are important to us, so we will continue to fulfill our tax obligations for the economic stability of the country. We will also continue our humanitarian mission and help Ukrainians affected by the war,” commented Igor Zotko, owner of PIN-UP Ukraine.
The company regularly donates to the PIN-UP Foundation, a charity fund that allocates all its resources to support and develop Ukraine. The company has donated more than UAH 153.3 million to charitable and humanitarian projects. PIN-UP has evacuated more than 100 Ukrainians who lost their homes abroad, participated in a rescue mission after the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant explosion, repaired and equipped children’s centers in Kyiv region, and installed stationary street shelters in Kherson and Kharkiv region. As part of the LINE-UP project, the Foundation delivered 200 tons of essential goods to frontline cities and helped 15,000 Ukrainians from more than 100 settlements in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia regions.
PIN-UP Ukraine is a Ukrainian online casino that was one of the first in Ukraine to obtain an operating license. The license to organize and conduct casino gambling on the Internet was issued to UKR GAME TECHNOLOGIES LLC by the Commission for Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries in 2021.
UKR GAME TECHNOLOGIES LLC, a licensed representative of the PIN-UP Ukraine market, tops the rating of businesses with an impeccable business reputation in the gambling industry by Opendatabot.
In 2023, the agricultural holding Continental Farmers Group paid UAH 1.4 billion to the budgets of all levels and allocated UAH 37.7 million for social projects, the holding’s press service said on Tuesday.
“As an honest and responsible business, we constantly report annually on taxes paid and financial support to the communities we cooperate with. I would like to emphasize that Continental Farmers Group is and will remain a reliable long-term partner for both its shareholders and the state, especially in this difficult period,” the press service quoted Georg von Nolken, CEO of the agricultural holding, as saying.
According to the report, support for Ukrainian defenders remains an integral part of Continental’s social responsibility policy. Since February 2022, the agricultural holding has allocated UAH 55.1 million to help the military.
Mriya Agro Holding and CFG, united under the name Continental Farmers Group, have been operating as a single business since November 2018, when Mriya entered into an agreement with international investor Salic UK to sell its assets.
Salic was founded in 2012. Its sole shareholder is the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, which invests in agricultural and livestock production.
Metinvest Mining and Metallurgical Group, including its associates and joint ventures, paid UAH 14.6 billion in taxes and duties to the budgets of all levels in Ukraine in 2023.
According to the company’s press release on Wednesday, Metinvest remains the backbone of the country’s economy in the face of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The press release specifies that the largest deductions include a unified social tax, which amounted to UAH 3.3 billion, income tax – UAH 3.2 billion, and personal income tax – more than UAH 3 billion.
At the same time, last year Metinvest’s Ukrainian enterprises increased land payments by almost 10% compared to 2022, to UAH 1.2 billion. Environmental tax payments also increased to UAH 608 million.
In addition, subsoil use fees in the amount of UAH 2.2 billion became a significant source of revenues for the state and local budgets of Ukraine in 2023.
Yuriy Ryzhenkov, CEO of Metinvest Group, noted that the company had survived another extremely difficult year of war. Despite the serious challenges for the country in general and Ukrainian business in particular, it managed to survive and rebuild its operations in the new environment.
“Despite the problems with asset utilization and the aggressor’s naval blockade, despite the loss of control over assets in Mariupol, the shutdown of Avdiivka Coke and a significant reduction in the number of employees due to the war, Metinvest remains one of the largest taxpayers in Ukraine. And the refusal of tax benefits due to the company under the law allowed us to allocate additional funds to those areas where it is most needed. We continue to support Ukrainians and the army on their path to victory and call on every business to join in and support Ukraine through taxes, donations, assistance to the Armed Forces and civilians during the challenges we are all facing now,” the top manager emphasized.
“Metinvest is a vertically integrated group of steel and mining companies. The group’s enterprises are located mainly in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovs’k regions.
The main shareholders of the holding are SCM Group (71.24%) and Smart Holding (23.76%), which jointly manage it.
Metinvest Holding LLC is the management company of Metinvest Group.
In 2023, Ukrgasvydobuvannya JSC paid UAH 23.8 billion in rent payments, the company’s press service reports.
According to the press service, UAH 1.19 billion, or 5%, of this amount went to the budgets of the local and regional levels where the company operates.
The budgets of Kharkiv and Poltava regions received the largest amount of payments – UAH 584.16 million and UAH 496.34 million, respectively.
The amount of rent payments is calculated in accordance with the sale price of Ukrgasvydobuvannya’s natural gas in favor of Naftogaz of Ukraine.
As reported, in 2022, UGV produced 12.5 bcm of natural gas (commercial), which is 3% less than in 2021.
For 2023, Ukrgasvydobuvannya has been set the task to increase natural gas production by 1 bcm to 13.5 bcm.
According to the operational data, the company increased production by more than 0.7 bcm in 2023. At the end of 2023, UGV reached an average daily production of 37.5 million cubic meters.
NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine owns 100% of Ukrgasvydobuvannya shares.
In 2023, Energoatom paid more than UAH 21 billion in tax and other payments to the state budget.
“This is UAH 1 billion more than the company paid to the state budget in 2021, when it operated all 15 nuclear power units,” NNEGC said on Telegram.
The head of Energoatom, Petra Kotina, noted that in terms of taxes and other payments to the state budget in 2023, the company managed to fulfill its obligations, operating only nine power units in the territory controlled by Ukraine without the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhia NPP with its six thousandth power units.
As reported, in the first half of 2023, Energoatom received UAH 68 billion in revenue and paid almost UAH 11 billion in taxes to the state budget of Ukraine.
