Tax raid at Russian oil giant

[salin]

Tax raid at Russian oil giant

Thursday, April 22, 2004 Posted: 8:22 AM EDT (1222 GMT)

MOSCOW, Russia (Reuters) -- Russian tax officials have raided the headquarters of oil giant Yukos, confiscating documents which may shed light on alleged tax evasion by its affiliates, the company said.

The search was part of a prosecution of Yukos on charges of evading around $3.5 billion in taxes.

"They came and took documents," a Yukos spokesman said. "The search is over now."

---snip ---

Yukos has weathered a campaign of administrative checks and investigations since prosecutors arrested its politically ambitious main shareholder Mikhail Khodorkovsky last October on charges of tax evasion and fraud.

The onslaught is widely seen as part of a Kremlin-inspired campaign to destroy the magnate's influence.

more: http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/04/22/russia.yukos.reut/index.html

[nolabels]

1. Feels like 1984 time

US corporations had animosity to the US government at one time, now they are in bed with them.

Moscow was what seemed to be one big cult earlier, now government is trying to take over enterprises of income

In the story line, they have switched positions and nobody really notices

[On the Road]

2. Russia Needs to Do This

Tax cheating is massive, and is starving the government so it's unable to provide many basic services. Now whether this particular raid is polically motivated or not is another matter.

[bemildred]

3. Yeah, it's a war between the government and enterpreneurs.

Pooty-poot seems to be winning.

[On the Road]

4. Yes, Except the "Entrepreneurs"

are former apparatchiks who got sweetheart deals on state assets in the privatization craze. Since then, they've gone beyond simple tax avoidance to tax repudiation. They have to follow the law -- they are not helping anyone but themelves.

[bemildred]

5. I suppose I was not clear.

I don't have much use for enterpreneurs.
A fancy name for greedy assholes.

In this particular case, I'm not fond of Putin either,
but I agree with what he's doing here, the last thing
the world needs is more robber-barons.