““RIA Internet Advertising” LLC, which is a subsidiary of the Estonian international group “RIA.com Marketplaces OÜ”, founded in 2012, came under attack.”, — write: www.unian.ua
“RIA Internet Advertising” LLC, which is a subsidiary of the Estonian international group “RIA.com Marketplaces OÜ”, founded in 2012, came under attack.
Photo by BEBAccording to the idea of the chairman of the tax committee of the Verkhovna Rada, Danylo Hetmantsev, a “white business club” was created in Ukraine, the list of which is approved by the State Tax Service. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed the corresponding draft law No. 11084. The purpose of this document is to protect businesses with a high level of voluntary tax compliance from background checks by imposing a moratorium on such activities. This was expected to stimulate the domestic economy during the war. But, as Channel 24 reports, unfortunately, in practice, everything is not so simple, and problems await Ukrainian entrepreneurs.In a situation where it is not possible to prosecute the largest taxpayers under the Tax Code, the Bureau of Economic Security of Ukraine (BEB) decided to go “its own way” and put pressure on business by formally using the Criminal Code.
It would seem that such actions of investigators are real nonsense, but there are already examples of the use of such practices.
“RIA Internet Advertising” LLC, which is a subsidiary of the Estonian international group “RIA.com Marketplaces OÜ”, founded in 2012, came under attack.
This LLC is a resident of Diya City and is also known for its platforms AUTO.RIA.com, DIM.RIA.com, RIA.com. It ranks twenty-third in the world ranking of classifieds portals and fifth among independent portals. In addition, this company participates in the development of the digital infrastructure of Ukraine.
If we talk directly about taxes, the LLC paid a lot of them for the previous incomplete four years – 175 million hryvnias.
It would seem: what could be the questions? But they unexpectedly arose, and in July 2024, criminal proceedings were initiated against company officials on the grounds of the crime provided for in Part 3 Art. 212 of the Criminal Code (“Tax evasion in particularly large amounts”).
It is about the fictitious non-payment of VAT and income tax in the amount of almost 107 million hryvnias in the years 2021-2024.
Another strange point in the situation is that the basis for such actions became the so-called analytical products of the BEB, which, as it turns out, are classified.
At the same time, it is necessary to clarify an important detail: according to accounting and tax accounting, there are no violations of the Tax Code that would be of a criminal nature, as evidenced by the Act of documentary verification by tax officials.
However, BEB does not pay attention to obvious things, and launched a tough attack on LLC, during which tens of thousands of documents, which constitute banking and commercial secrets, were seized from the company.
The consequence of such arbitrariness was that the company’s management did not have the opportunity to work fully for two months.
Paradoxically, in such a situation, the company does not have the opportunity to effectively defend itself in court. It turned out that she was simply not allowed to get acquainted with the case materials, explaining the refusal by the alleged secrecy of the investigation.
This scandalous situation was commented on by lawyer Oleksandr Zhivun, according to whom “criminal proceedings, based on such an “analytical product” and not a tax audit act, do not have a justified judicial perspective.”
We would like to add that the company’s management does not give up hope of finding the truth, so it addressed this situation to President Volodymyr Zelenskyi, Prime Minister Denys Shmygal, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Ruslan Stefanchuk, the Business Ombudsman, the DBI, the Prosecutor General’s Office and a number of international institutions, and also provided proposals for bringing some legal norms into compliance with European legislation.