RusEnergy

04-15-2005 RBC News - The work on tax administration will continue and large companies will inevitably face claims related to investigations into tax payment practices, senior deputy finance minister Sergey Shatalov has told RBC TV. According to Shatalov, it would be strange if only one legal case related to tax evasion practices were initiated. "From time to time, one can learn about some companies filing for bankruptcy protection in the West," Shatalov emphasized. Commenting on the situation with back tax claims against BP-TNK the deputy finance minister said that he had no understanding about where this piece of information came from. He added that tax authorities denied their charging the British-Russian joint venture with using illegal tax evasion schemes after holding additional investigations into the issue. "I don't know where this information comes from and why it jolts the stock market," he added. On April 11, representatives of BP-TNK announced that the Russian Federal Tax Service had handed an act on the results of additional investigations into tax payment practices for 2001 to TNK. The service reportedly claimed RUR22bn (around USD785m) in overdue taxes for the period so that total claims against the company were boosted to RUR26bn (around USD928m). However, official representatives of the Federal Tax Service have refuted this information. Russian authorities have claimed that they would have a strict position dealing with large companies evading taxes. Presidential assistant Igor Shuvalov announced that the YUKOS case was a prime example for other firms using similar schemes for minimizing tax payments. Russia is supposed to use the same approach to such other companies, even if its image suffers. Shuvalov claimed that a main political task for Russian authorities was to reduce the existing tax burden and to work out a transparent taxation system. He promised to stiffen the taxation system and those who violate tax regulations will be sued by authorities, Shuvalov said.