Source They want to recover 112 million rubles from the founders of the bankrupt grain company from Kropotkin. The arbitration manager of the grain company “Class” plans to recover from the founders of the company, as well as from the enterprise from the Belgorod region, jointly and severally 111.6 million rubles. on bankrupt's debts. This is the tax debt of the company for the period from 2015 to 2016. The manager claims that the persons controlling the debtor used an unfair business model involving fictitious counterparties in the chain of transactions. Lawyers believe that this is a common tax evasion scheme, and if it is proven in court, those responsible will be held accountable.
Aleksey Golubev, the bankruptcy trustee of LLC Grain Company Class, filed an application with the Arbitration Court (AC) of the Krasnodar Territory to bring to subsidiary liability the founders of the enterprise, Sergei Mikhailovich and Yulia Parshikov (father and daughter), as well as the company LLC ZK Efko- TO””. The amount planned to be collected is 111.6 million rubles.
As follows from the court ruling, Sergei Mikhailovich was the general director of Grain Company Class LLC from December 2013 to June 2015, Yulia Parshikova has been the head of the company since May 2015. ZK Efko-K LLC is a subsidiary of the Moscow enterprise JSC Efko Foods. According to SPARK-Interfax, Grain Company Class LLC was registered in 2008 in Kropotkin, its profile is grain wholesale. LLC “Procurement company “Efko-K”” was registered in 2014 in the Belgorod region. The main activity is the wholesale of grain, tobacco, seeds and feed for farm animals.
In November 2019, at the request of the Federal Tax Service of Russia for the Krasnodar Territory, the court declared the grain company “Class” bankrupt. The amount of the company's debt to the tax was 99.7 million rubles. (principal debt – 64.7 million rubles, penalties and fines – 34.8 million rubles). As stated in the court ruling, the tax authority revealed arrears in the company during an audit in 2018. Income and property taxes were not paid in accordance with the law for the period from 2015 to 2016.
In 2016, the grain company “Class” was a participant in transactions with many counterparties under sales contracts, contracts for the transportation of seeds of grain and oilseeds, follows from the ruling of the court. “During the transactions, the counterparties did not participate in the movement of goods and did not carry out economic activities, since they did not have material and labor resources, fixed assets and vehicles.
Agricultural products were supplied directly from commodity producers under the contract for the supply of ZK “Efko-K”. At the same time, numerous counterparties were used to move funds to manufacturers and create a formal workflow in order to create the appearance of real business transactions for the debtor to purchase goods from suppliers who are formally payers of value added tax,” the court ruling says.
“When analyzing the materials of an on-site tax audit, it was established that the persons controlling the debtor used an unscrupulous business model with a division into risky and risk-free parts, the purpose of which was to accumulate tax risks on the debtor and withdraw tax benefits in the form of deductions for which the tax base was not formed, in in favor of ZK Efko-K in the amount of 90.9 million rubles,” Alexei Golubev, bankruptcy trustee of the grain company Class, comments on Kommersant-Kuban.
According to him, the application of this scheme allowed ZK Efko-K LLC to purchase agricultural products at a price lower than this product is sold by agricultural producers to the original buyers. These actions, according to the manager, led to the receipt of benefits by ZK Efko-K in the form of savings on the purchase of products using VAT deductions, and for the grain company Class, damage in the form of an additional charge of 90.5 million rubles. That is, as Mr. Golubev explains, the debtor's losses are directly related to the receipt of benefits by ZK Efko-K.
“The tax authority believes that Efko-K during the disputed period was the controlling person of the entire group of enterprises participating in the scheme, which led to the debtor showing signs of insolvency and causing harm to creditors,” says Alexey Golubev.
He adds that the debtor’s lack of funds to fulfill tax obligations is most likely due to the redistribution of financial flows under the influence of ZK Efko-K LLC in such a way that the proceeds due to the debtor from the provision of services may have been transferred to the settlement accounts of employees controlled by the Civil Code. Efko.
Kirill Baranovsky, senior lawyer at Rustam Kurmaev & Partners, believes that the scheme of the debtor and ZK Efko-K LLC to conceal millions in taxes is not extraordinary. “Creating a chain of fictitious suppliers, using them to increase input VAT, which exceeds output VAT, is a standard scheme for obtaining tax preferences,” says Mr. Baranovsky, adding that if the participation of ZK Efko-K in the tax concealment scheme was directors or other members of the management bodies of the company, then damages may be recovered from such persons in the event of provability of this fact.
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