Do you remember the shocking statistics of the illegal tobacco market of 25%, where the state loses 23 billion hryvnia annually, and that the G7 ambassadors and US special representatives on corruption in Ukraine have already become involved in this problem.
In war conditions, such losses are unacceptable, as I promised, we will dismantle this industry into molecules. With names, diagrams and facts.
Today, keep a complete picture of the illegal sale of cigarettes in Kyiv, which is ignored by the tax authorities.
Let's start with some general information.
There are about 5-6 thousand points selling cigarettes in Kyiv.
This is the most widespread and profitable retail outlet in the country, because with “correct” work, each of them gives from $1,500 to $3,000 in net earnings per month. Total for Kyiv is 10-12 million dollars.
And this is very approximate, because it all depends on how legally you work, whether you pay taxes and whether your network of kiosks is involved in conversion schemes and VAT laundering. That's why there are so many of them.
Now the research.
At the beginning of January, a group of concerned citizens helped me conduct an experiment with buying cigarettes at kiosks, recording the legality of the point of sale and issuing/not issuing a fiscal receipt.
In about a week, 96 kiosks were checked in different areas of Kyiv.
A report for each point with addresses and photo evidence in a separate file, so if you want to check everything yourself, please do so.
The result is amazing.
Of the 96 points, only 32 operate legally.
They are licensed, use PPO and issued a fiscal receipt, the authenticity of which is confirmed in the tax office’s electronic account.
14 points issued a forged document instead of a check.
48 points do not have a license at all, operate exclusively in cash and do not issue any documents.
In percentage terms it looks like this:
33% work legally and pay taxes
14.5% have a license, but do not use PPO
52.5% operate without a license or cash register at all.
Nice statistics?
67% of cigarette sales points operate illegally.
And this is in Kyiv, where the country’s tax and law enforcement system is concentrated.
But the issue here is not only about paying taxes.
These 67% of kiosks, and out of 5-6 thousand this is about 4,000 points, are platforms for the sale of counterfeit goods, cache collection by conversion centers and part of the global system of VAT fraud.
By selling cigarettes without receipts for cash, the kiosk is selling a product that it did not legally purchase, and these sales do not exist for the state.
But in fact there are sales. Documents for these cigarettes are sold separately.
They are sold to rolling companies, where VAT on cigarettes turns into VAT on the supply of materials for construction, or even agriculture.
This is a complex multi-stage scheme that needs to be described separately, but that’s not what we’re talking about today.
Today we are talking about statistics and the blindness of the Kyiv tax office, which does not notice such a large-scale excise crime under its nose.
The person in charge, or more correctly “covering up” all this chaos in Kyiv, is the head of the excise department of the tax office, Alexander Moroz, who remains in this post even when his employees were detained for taking bribes and the leadership of the capital’s tax office was changed. Everyone is being replaced, but he is not there.
Moroz is considered part of the “Monakovites” group, which leads excise issues (cigarettes and vodka) at the all-Ukrainian level. From production to provision of excise stamps and sales throughout the country.
The “Monakovites” also control the main illegal tobacco factories. A factory in the Ternopil region and a factory in the village of Goshcha, Rivne region, which is associated with one of the “Monakovites” Vladislav Gelzin.
Today they are the flagships of the production of counterfeit cigarettes, which have saturated the market within the country and left for the EU.
Having created all this “excise” chaos with the hands of Alexander Moroz in Kyiv, the “Monakovites” received an excellent platform for any fraud with excisable goods and schemes around them, which I wrote about above.
Including the sale of counterfeit goods, which the G7 ambassadors were outraged by.
Again.
67% of the capital's cigarette kiosks operate in the shade, and everyone is happy with this.
