“Ukrnafta” pays lawyers who use methods of “optimization” of tax payments: audit of GASU

Auditors noted huge sums paid to lawyers and experts who may be close to the company's management.

The latest audit by the State Audit Service of Ukraine (SASU) of the state-owned Ukrnafta, headed by Sergei Koretsky, found that millions of public funds are being paid to the company's managers and consultants, while they may use methods to reduce the tax burden.

Political commentator and blogger Mikhail Schneider reported this on his Facebook page.

Among other things, auditors drew attention to the huge sums paid to lawyers and experts who may be close to the company's management.

Thus, according to the information presented in the inspection report of the State Antimonopoly Service, Ukrnafta spent millions on legal services that were provided without due transparency. One example was the payment to the Asters law firm - almost 10 million hryvnia, transferred without a tender in August 2023 for services provided back in February. The total amount of payments, as it turned out, reached about 45 million hryvnia.

In addition, the case of lawyer Oksana Volynets stands out, who, according to the audit, received income as an individual entrepreneur (PE), although she provided services precisely as a lawyer. This design made it possible to reduce the amount of taxes paid, due to which the state budget could have received a shortfall of about 1.7 million hryvnia.

In general, the total amount of payments received by Volynets since November 2022 has already reached 8 million hryvnia. Therefore, according to experts, the amount by which taxes could be “optimized” could be approximately 3.3 million hryvnia. But despite the scale of the violations, the SASU auditors limited themselves to only pointing out the absence of a report, without going into significant details of the tax reduction.

This lawyer, who provides services to Ukrnafta, was Koretsky’s deputy until May 2023 and received a salary of 1.1 million from the state-owned Ukrnafta.

Schneider is calling for a more objective investigation and explanation of why possible irregularities in the disbursement of millions of public funds are going undetected. “And today, in light of yesterday’s victorious reports on the Ukrnafta website, NABU searches are being carried out at the central office of Ukrnafta and at the residence addresses of management,” the expert sums up.