Russia's biggest shipping company, Volgotanker, has received a $23 million back tax claim for 2001, Kommersant business daily reported on Saturday. The paper quoted Volgotanker Chairman Alexander Alexandrovich as saying a Samara regional tax department had said Volgotanker, which mainly deals with shipping oil and oil products, had been wrongly awarded a refund of some taxes.
Kommersant said Volgotanker had already submitted its objections to the tax authorities but if they disagreed with the objections and put forward claims for 2002 and 2003, the company would face difficulties in paying the debt.
The paper quoted Alexandrovich as saying that if the tax service used the same logic for 2002, 2003 and 2004, Volgotanker would have to pay $80 million.
"The shipping company cannot pay so much without selling property," Alexandrovich said.
Kommersant quoted Samara tax department spokesman Vladimir Khalapud as saying the department did not intend to check Volgotanker's 2002 report.
"Under the law, there is one check in three years and the tax authorities will only check the company's 2002 report when this period expires," he said.
The tax service checked oil company YUKOS's reports for the last three years mounting a $27.5 billion back tax claim on it and selling its key production unit to compensate for some of the debt.
The market views YUKOS's troubles as the Kremlin's punishment for the political ambitions of its principal owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky, but each new back tax claim sends shivers through the market.