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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
Plinsky urged NABU to audit the State Tax Service (STS) over the last two years amid the detention of tax officers in Ternopil.
NABU reported the detention of the deputy head of the Ternopil Tax Office during the receipt of money that investigators say was demanded for lawful VAT refunds for businesses. In this context, journalist Yevhen Plinsky stated that there are large-scale corruption problems in the State Tax Service and urged an audit of its activities over the past two years.
This is written by journalist Yevhen Plinsky.
According to him, the STS’s activities under the leadership of Lesia Karnauh over the last two years have remained out of prosecutors’ focus, despite business representatives’ complaints about extortion and the operation of conversion centers.
Plinsky links this to the political influence of former Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko, whom, he claims, controlled the STS. The journalist also says that figures in Kravchenko’s circle allegedly had a quota for appointing Karnauh’s deputies.
According to Plinsky, after losing this “protection,” the situation began to change rapidly. Prime Minister Serhiy Koretsky dismissed Karnauh from her post, and law enforcement began publicly reporting on corruption schemes in the tax service.
In particular, NABU reported the exposure of a scheme in which, for lawful VAT refunds to businesses in the Ternopil region, 11,5% of the refund amount was demanded.
During the receipt of funds from the refund amount amounting to 14,6 million UAH, detectives detained the deputy head of the Ternopil Tax Office. As Plinsky notes, citing journalist Taras Seredych, this concerns Maryia Melnik.
The journalist draws attention precisely to the size of the percentage. In his view, such a sum may indicate the existence of a systemic scheme that is not limited to the level of a single regional STS subdivision.
Plinsky also claims that VAT remains not only important for budget formation but also one of the key corruption tools of the tax system. He believes that collecting such sums at the regional STS level could allow for their further distribution at the Kyiv level.
Separately, the journalist criticized the government's idea to raise the VAT rate to 21%. In his words, if VAT refunds are already accompanied by extortion, increasing the rate could make the corresponding schemes even more costly for business. At the same time, the higher tax would ultimately fall on the end consumer.
Plinsky also suggests that creating a separate fund to support businesses affected by the war could give rise to new corruption risks—from kickbacks to applying loyalty criteria toward business and its owners to the authorities.
According to the journalist, the STS has historically remained one of the main corruption elements of the state system, where supervisors and those responsible for financial flows change, but the format of work allegedly remains.
He raises the question of how deeply law enforcement, including NABU, can examine the STS’s activities and possible corruption schemes of the last two years. Plinsky claims that many criminal cases have already been opened, and the evidentiary base allegedly has been gathered, but there was previously a “taboo” on their movement.
Separately, the journalist cited a fragment of an analytical note from one of the law enforcement agencies on a scheme of illicit fuel production.
In the document cited by Plinsky, it is stated that there was systematic evasion of excise tax under the pretext of producing bioethanol. According to the authors of the note, in fact it was about illegal production of ethyl alcohol, its sale outside tax control with zero excise, and later legalization through fictitious processing into non-excisable products.
The note also states that the scheme was allegedly ensured with the participation of officials of the STS, in particular the director of the Department for the Control of Excise Goods of the STS of Ukraine H.G. Bozhenko and the corresponding service staff. The document states that this occurred “with the consent of acting head Karnauh L.A.”.
According to the data given in the note, from 1 January 2025 to 1 March 2026 of the year, the volume of high-risk operations amounted to 17,68 million liters, and estimated budget losses exceeded 3,5 billion UAH. The authors of the document see signs of organized criminal activity.
Meanwhile, Plinsky notes that despite these data, the excise department of the STS, according to his information, continues to be controlled by the so-called “Monaco group.” The journalist claims that its representatives remotely receive profits from schemes with excise taxes.
Plinsky emphasizes that in wartime there are substantial resources that could go to the state budget. He estimates Ukraine’s daily needs for the war at $190 million.
In his view, without changing the STS’s approach to work, additional taxes, including VAT on parcels or taxation of OnlyFans earnings, will not provide the economy with the necessary resources.
The journalist assesses the share of the economy that remains in the shadow of corruption at 30%, and believes that there is a significant resource for filling the state budget there.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Плінський закликав НАБУ перевірити ДПС за останні два роки на тлі затримання податківців у Тернополі". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: ANTIKOR.
