Yukos told to pay $5.24b tax bill

Russian oil giant Yukos, which produces a fifth of the country's oil, has lost its latest bid to stall payment of a US$3.4 billion ($5.24 billion) tax bill that it says could push it into bankruptcy.

A Moscow court has set down September 6 as the date for Yukos to appeal an earlier ruling that it had to pay the bill. But it also said that, until the September hearing, Yukos would still have to comply with the earlier order for immediate payment.

That means the company will remain vulnerable to its assets being seized by bailiffs.

The September hearing will be Yukos' second appeal against a court order to pay 99 billion roubles ($5.24 billion) in taxes and fines for the 2000 financial year.

A separate Yukos attempt to appeal against the tax ministry's claim of back taxes also failed when proceedings were suspended in the same court because the judge stepped down. Judge Olga Mikhailova said she considered media reports of the trial as an attempt to apply pressure on the court.

The arbitration court ruling came as Yukos former chief executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky prepared for another day in court on charges of massive fraud and tax evasion.

He and co-defendant Platon Lebedev have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Apart from the 2000 tax bill, authorities are demanding that Yukos pay a similar sum for 2001. Analysts predict that when audits of 2002 and 2003 are ready the total figure could rise above US$10 billion.

Yukos said last week it would begin paying US$1.3 billion towards its 2000 bill, but that a freeze on its bank accounts would hamper paying any more.

Khodorkovsky, Russia's richest man before his arrest last October, has described previous arbitration court decisions as "shameful" and promised to fight them.

Prime-Tass news agency said on Monday that Yukos had filed its objections to the 2001 audit to the tax ministry.

Khodorkovsky said at his trial on Friday that he found it difficult to believe that authorities could have overlooked non-payment of taxes by a company that had been under such tight scrutiny for years.

Lebedev, also a major Yukos shareholder, told the court that the process against them was politically motivated.

President Vladimir Putin, in power since 2000, has launched an aggressive campaign to stamp out political ambitions among "oligarchs" - a handful of top businessmen who made vast fortunes under Putin's predecessor, Boris Yeltsin.

Top Russian officials deny that political motivation lies behind the trials of Yukos and Khodorkovsky.

But Putin's political opponents say that Khodorkovsky, who had funded opposition parties, is paying the price for not bowing fast enough to Putin's demand to quit politics.



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