The research and production enterprise of oil and gas equipment in three court instances failed to cancel the decision of the interdistrict inspection of the Federal Tax Service for Bashkiria to bring to administrative responsibility. According to the department, the company entered into a fictitious deal to obtain “an unreasonable tax benefit”, and therefore owed the budget about 57 million rubles. taxes, penalties and fines. Lawyers see no prospects for the cancellation of judicial acts, but believe that the company has a chance to reduce the amount of the tax penalty.
The Arbitration Court of the Urals District upheld the decision of the Arbitration Court of Bashkiria and the decision of the Eighteenth Arbitration Court of Appeal, which dismissed the claim of Scientific and Production Enterprise of Oil and Gas Equipment LLC (NPNO). In August 2022, the first instance did not invalidate the decisions of the tax inspectorate, which in April 2021 held the company liable for committing a tax offense: it ordered it to pay 56.9 million rubles. debt, and also stopped operations on accounts. In December, an appeal upheld the decision.
According to the case file, the inter-district inspection of the Federal Tax Service of Bashkiria No. 40 found that in 2016-2017 the NPNO committed a tax offense. Thus, the company distorted information and created the appearance of an actual transaction with Nordstar LLC (liquidated in October 2019) for the purchase of metal structures and inventory items in the amount of 132 million rubles. The inspection, in particular, established that the supplier had never been located at his legal address.
LLC Scientific and Production Enterprise of Oil and Gas Equipment was registered in Ufa in June 2007. The company specializes in the production and supply of prefabricated buildings and oil and gas equipment. Owned by Marat Khafizov. In 2021, the company’s net profit amounted to 750 thousand rubles. with revenue of 495 million rubles.
In court, a representative of the NGO stated that the arguments of the tax authorities “are based on circumstantial evidence, on a formal approach without establishing real tax liabilities.”
Refusing to satisfy the claim, the courts of first instance and appeal established that during the disputed period the company purchased materials for the construction of dormitory buildings and a bath and laundry plant for the customer JSC RN-Snabzhenie and an operator room for OOO Tagulskoye. In fact, the company purchased materials from PKF Stalkom LLC, and Nordstar indicated in the documentation in order to receive a repeated tax deduction and reduce the tax base for income tax. The court agreed with the argument of the tax authorities about “doubling” the facts of economic life and the costs of them “in order to obtain unreasonable tax benefits.”
In the cassation complaint, the plaintiff again referred to the “presumptive nature” of the arguments of the tax inspectorate.
The court of cassation did not agree with the opinion of the NGO. Nordstar had no property, employees, did not pay taxes and did not conduct economic activities, the court pointed out.
In March of this year, the NPNO re-applied to the arbitration court of Bashkiria with a request to review the decision due to some newly discovered circumstances. The first meeting is scheduled for May 25.
The Research and Production Enterprise of Oil and Gas Equipment did not respond to a request from Kommersant-Ufa.
According to Roman Rechkin, senior partner at Intellect law firm, the tax authority in this case stopped the obvious scheme of illegal tax optimization, therefore “challenging the decision of the tax authority in court initially did not make sense.”
Alexander Terentiev, partner of the Veta expert group, believes that the plaintiff has a chance to review decisions in the Supreme Court only if his arguments are based on truthful grounds, and the courts regarded the conclusions of the tax inspectorate superficially. “There is no certainty in the complete cancellation of decisions, but revisions of the amounts charged are quite possible,” he said.