The Federal Tax Service collects 5.6 billion rubles of arrears from the Kaliningrad manufacturer of cigarettes

The tax authorities are gaining recovery of more than 5.6 billion rubles. From the structures of the Kaliningrad manufacturer of tobacco products – a universal cigarette manufactory (brands Dakota, K.ritter, Vega) – one of the few large independent players in the Russian market. As part of the case, the company’s accounts and equipment have already been arrested, which can greatly limit its work. Part of the claims of the tax authorities may be related to excise payments, experts say. Sometimes manufacturers avoid their payment, registering products as export, and subsequently sell it in the domestic market.

On April 3, the Inspectorate of the Federal Tax Service No. 27 (IFTS) appealed to the Arbitration Court of the Kaliningrad Region with a lawsuit against LLC Universal Cigarette Manufactory (USM), Alfa Trade Logistics LLC, Union Tobacco Fectoria (UTF) and several legal entities on the recovery of 5.62 billion rubles. This follows from the materials of the court. The debt originally arose at LLC Sigaretts. Kenigsberg.Podakshn, who is a third party in the case.

The court accepted the claim for production, imposed within the framework of interim measures to arrest equipment for the tobacco industry, funds and several trademarks of the defendants in the case.

The USM explained “Kommersant” that they received a lawsuit only today: the company is preparing for the trial and is engaged in the study of the case materials. In other structures and the Federal Tax Service, they did not answer the questions “Kommersant” quickly.

USM-manufacturer of tobacco products from the Kaliningrad region working under the UCM brand. The interlocutor of Kommersant in the market says that this is the second largest player in the region after the Baltic tobacco factory. The USM, as noted in the company, owns production in Bagrationovsk. Its capacity is 950 million cigarettes per month, follows from the information on the company’s website. She also produces cigarettes, cigarillas, tobacco and filters, including products under the local brands Dakota, K.ritter, Vega, Kaori.

Three Kommersant interlocutors in the tobacco market suggest that claims are related to the non -payment of excise taxes. “The legal manufacturers of tobacco for the last year paid a total of more than 800 billion rubles to the budget,” says one of them. Another Kommersant source in the tobacco market does not exclude that the company could use the export scheme in its work. “Products that go abroad are withdrawn from under excise taxes, and unscrupulous market participants can fictitiously show shipments abroad, and subsequently sell cigarettes in Russia,” he explains.

Cases of recovering such amounts are rare, notes the arbitration manager Tatyana Pugacheva. She draws attention to the fact that the courts do not very often satisfy statements about taking interim measures – only in every third case. They are aimed at protecting the interests of the applicant, and not at the creation of unreasonable obstacles to the activities, the expert says.

Andrei Ganseev, senior lawyer of the Bublikov and partners UK, does not exclude that the arrest of funds “will have a destructive influence on the company’s work”: it is possible to use them now only to pay wages, taxes, fees, insurance premiums.

But the business also carries other mandatory expenses, such as utility bills, settlements with counterparties under previously concluded agreements, he lists. The expert notes that the USM can petition for the abolition or softening of measures.

Maxim Korolev, editor -in -chief of Russian Tabak news agency, notes that cases of large penalties of tax authorities from tobacco manufacturers rarely arise: most players work in a legal field. In general, the production of cigarettes in Russia in 2024, according to the Federal State Statistics Service, decreased by 2.4% of the year by the year, to 194 billion pieces.

Alina Migacheva, Alexandra Meretsalova