Russian Authorities Slap Yukos With Additional $10Bln Tax Bill

On Monday, Nov. 1, the Russian Tax Ministry presented embattled Yukos Oil Company with additional tax claims worth $10 billion, bringing the oil company’s total tax bill to $17.5 billion. The news, which sent Yukos shares tumbling, leaves very little hope for a favorable outcome to the Yukos affair.

The officials presented the oil major with the results of the tax audit for 2002 and calculated that Yukos has failed to pay 193 billion rubles ($6.7 billion) of taxes for that year, Interfax agency reported. Also on Monday, Yuganskneftegaz, Yukos’ main production subsidiary received a separate $3.3 billion back-tax claim: $2.3 billion for unpaid taxes in 2001 and $1 billion in taxes owed for 2002. Yukos’ tax bills for 2000 and 2001 amounted to $7.5 billion, $3.4 billion of which the company has already paid off.

The tax claims against Yukos, which produces about 1.7 million barrels of oil a day have raised numerous concerns about possible disruptions in deliveries from Russia, which is the world’s second-biggest oil exporter behind Saudi Arabia.

The news sent Yukos shares down 11.8 percent on Moscow’s ruble-denominated MICEX exchange. The firm’s market capitalization is roughly $9 billion, a quarter of what it was before the arrest of Yukos’ founder and former CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky in October 2003.

(From Moscow News, 2.11.2004)