Russia raises YUKOS’s 2001 back-tax bill to US$4 bln

MOSCOW – Russia’s Tax Ministry has raised its back-tax claims against oil major YUKOS by a fifth for the 2001 financial year to 119,9 billion roubles after completing new checks, the ministry said on Friday.

YUKOS has already missed last month’s deadline to pay US$3,4 billion (N$22,44 billion) in back taxes for 2000, saying it had managed to raise only US$2 billion. The company has also warned it may be forced to cut oil output and exports under its enormous back-tax bill, fuelling fears that oil supplies from Russia, the world’s second biggest oil exporter, may fall and force up oil prices further.The ministry said in a statement its tax claims for 2001 were similar to those for 2000 when YUKOS was channelling the bulk of its profits from oil sales via subsidiaries registered in regions offering tax breaks.YUKOS has repeatedly said those tax minimisation schemes were perfectly legal under the tax code then in place.On Friday, the firm promised to appeal the claim in courts.”The ministry wants us to voluntarily pay the back-tax bill for 2001 by September 4.We have been generously given until tonight.It’s obvious that we can’t do that,” YUKOS spokesman Alexander Shadrin told Reuters.YUKOS’s tax woes are part of a broader campaign seen by many analysts as orchestrated by the Kremlin to punish the company’s politically ambitious founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky, now on trial on fraud and tax evasion charges.Analysts believe the state will push YUKOS’s total back-tax bill to over US$10 billion before it starts selling its main oil producing Siberian unit Yugansk.YUKOS has said it fears the prized asset would be sold cheaply to Russian state energy firms.”We seriously doubt that the government will let YUKOS off the hook,” Raiffeisenbank said in a research note.”Until Yugansk is put on sale — in early October, we suppose — and the auction’s bidders and initial price are identified, we expect the market sentiment to be largely unaffected by the YUKOS-related tumult.”Shares in YUKOS, which have lost three quarters of their value since April, reacted mildly to the latestb news to trade 1,8 per cent down on the MICEX bourse at 1215 GMT, underperforming the broader market.The revised back-tax bill for 2001 means the Tax Ministry must now go to court to prove its claims are legal once YUKOS misses the voluntarily payment deadline.It took officials several months to get a positive court ruling on the 2000 bill.Officials are also checking YUKOS’s accounts for 2002-2004.-Nampa-ReutersThe company has also warned it may be forced to cut oil output and exports under its enormous back-tax bill, fuelling fears that oil supplies from Russia, the world’s second biggest oil exporter, may fall and force up oil prices further.The ministry said in a statement its tax claims for 2001 were similar to those for 2000 when YUKOS was channelling the bulk of its profits from oil sales via subsidiaries registered in regions offering tax breaks.YUKOS has repeatedly said those tax minimisation schemes were perfectly legal under the tax code then in place.On Friday, the firm promised to appeal the claim in courts.”The ministry wants us to voluntarily pay the back-tax bill for 2001 by September 4.We have been generously given until tonight.It’s obvious that we can’t do that,” YUKOS spokesman Alexander Shadrin told Reuters.YUKOS’s tax woes are part of a broader campaign seen by many analysts as orchestrated by the Kremlin to punish the company’s politically ambitious founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky, now on trial on fraud and tax evasion charges.Analysts believe the state will push YUKOS’s total back-tax bill to over US$10 billion before it starts selling its main oil producing Siberian unit Yugansk.YUKOS has said it fears the prized asset would be sold cheaply to Russian state energy firms.”We seriously doubt that the government will let YUKOS off the hook,” Raiffeisenbank said in a research note.”Until Yugansk is put on sale — in early October, we suppose — and the auction’s bidders and initial price are identified, we expect the market sentiment to be largely unaffected by the YUKOS-related tumult.”Shares in YUKOS, which have lost three quarters of their value since April, reacted mildly to the latestb news to trade 1,8 per cent down on the MICEX bourse at 1215 GMT, underperforming the broader market.The revised back-tax bill for 2001 means the Tax Ministry must now go to court to prove its claims are legal once YUKOS misses the voluntarily payment deadline.It took officials several months to get a positive court ruling on the 2000 bill.Officials are also checking YUKOS’s accounts for 2002-2004.-Nampa-Reuters