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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
The Avakov family profits by underreporting gas value and "optimizing" taxes
The family of Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, during his tenure as minister, profits from gas extraction by underreporting its value and "optimizing" taxes.
The results of this investigation are reported by the magazine Novoye Vremya.
According to the publication, the minister’s family business group not only recovered all assets lost during Viktor Yanukovych’s time, but in just 2014 year, according to NV, gas-extraction companies close to Avakov underpaid the state budget by 98,2 million UAH.
"The core of the Avakovs’ business is the Investor group, whose central office is located in a pretentious three-story mansion with stucco in the very center of Kharkiv. As of 2013 year, Inna Avakova, the minister’s wife, and his son Oleksandr were co-owners of this company. In the register of legal entities, Inna Avakova is still listed as the majority owner of this company. The minister himself stated that the assets he owned before entering public service were transferred to his son," the publication writes.
Investor includes the company Energia-95, which holds licenses to extract gas at the Denysivske and Maryinske fields in Kharkiv region.
The publication notes that in 2011 year Energia-95 pledged, as collateral for obligations of firms linked to Avakov, yet-to-be-extracted gas from Maryinske worth 1 billion UAH. And the hryvnia at that time was substantially stronger than it is now, considering its devaluation in 2014–2015 years.
In addition, Energia-95 holds a license, its partner company Denysivske is registered for part of the facilities and pipelines, and another firm — Gravelit-21 — handles the sale of extracted gas. All these structures are part of the "Investor" group that belongs to the minister’s family.
In 2014 the group extracted 171,8 million cubic meters of gas from the Denysivske deposits. Vadym Novynskyi’s company Ukrgazvydobuvannya, which extracted roughly the same amount in the same period, reported that it earned over 300 million UAH in net profit from this. However, at the Denysivske field they reported revenue of 313,7 million UAH, of which profit amounted to only 11 million UAH.
"The reason was the dumping prices at which Denysivske gas was sent to the market. Everything extracted in 2014 was sold by the partners for 313,7 million UAH, that is, at about 1,8 thousand UAH per thousand cubic meters," the publication notes.
"At the same time, the average market price for 1 thousand cubic meters was at that time no less than 4 thousand UAH. As a result, producers received more than 373 million UAH less. Considering the average dollar exchange rate in 2014 at 11,9 UAH / $1, this amounts to approximately $31 million," the publication writes.
Market experts believe that in the case of the Denysivske field one of the most effective and widespread schemes to reduce taxation was used.
pravda.com.ua
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Сім’я Авакова заробляє, занижуючи вартість газу і "оптимізуючи" податки". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: ANTIKOR.
