Yukos hit with new $3bn tax claim
From Jill Dougherty
CNN Moscow Bureau Chief
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MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- Russian officials have leveled a new multi-billion-dollar claim for back taxes against the embattled Yukos Oil Company, according to the Interfax news agency.
The Tax Ministry is demanding $3.4 billion in allegedly underpaid taxes for 2001, Interfax said Thursday.
The ministry had previously demanded approximately the same amount in back taxes for 2000. That claim was upheld by a court Wednesday.
Yukos has said the first demand alone would bankrupt the company. On Wednesday, the company offered to pay back a third of the 2000 total over two years.
News of the new claim hit the markets just before closing and sent Yukos stock sharply downward, falling 12.3 percent, Interfax said.
Analysts have been predicting new claims could be in the offing, but the speed of the action came as a surprise.
James Fenkner of Troika Dialog told CNN the 2001 amount was "double our estimates."
Some analysts had thought Russian President Vladimir Putin might weigh in again in support of not bankrupting Yukos.
Last month, Putin said the government was "not interested in the bankruptcy of such a company as Yukos."
Instead, the Tax Ministry leveled the new claim. In addition, Fenkner said, there is no sign of any deal pending between Yukos and the government to avoid bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, former Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky and close associate Platon Lebedev are facing trial on charges of fraud and tax evasion totaling more than $1 billion.
Analysts have said the collapse of Yukos would undermine faith in the Russian economy, throw stock markets into turmoil and call into question Putin's commitment to private property and economic reform.
Nevertheless observers believe the tax claims against Yukos and the Khodorkovsky trial are part of a Kremlin-inspired vendetta aimed at stripping the 41-year-old tycoon of his economic and political clout.
