Zenden shod taxmen

Zenden shod taxmen

Now the company will have to pay 1.1 billion rubles of lost taxes and fines. The First Arbitration Court of Appeal refused to satisfy the complaint of Dom Odezhda LLC (a legal entity of the shoe retailer Zenden, businessman Andrei Pavlov), which demanded to invalidate the decision of the Interdistrict Inspectorate of the Federal Tax Service (FTS) No. 13 for the Vladimir Region to recover almost 600 million rubles from it. uncollected taxes.

This follows from his ruling, published in mid-December 2022. Thus, the court confirmed the decision of the first instance, which has now entered into force. Taking into account fines and penalties, Zenden will have to pay about 1.1 billion rubles to the budget. The Federal Tax Service did not respond to Vedomosti’s request. The representative of the retailer says that the company will seek the cancellation of this decision in cassation.

IFTS No. 13 for the Vladimir Region conducted an audit of the Zenden structure for 2013–2015. in 2016. According to its results, she came to the conclusion that 22 individual entrepreneurs, to whom Dom Odezhdy LLC supplied shoes purchased abroad, were controlled by the company itself and part of the proceeds was withdrawn to them. As a result of this scheme, the company’s tax burden was reduced by 43.6%. In 2019, Dom Odezhda filed a lawsuit demanding that the decision of the tax authorities be declared invalid. The company was even able to win claims in the first two instances, but in October 2021, the cassation sent the case back for a new trial. Last summer, the Arbitration Court of the Vladimir Region refused to satisfy the requirements of the Zenden structure. This decision has now been upheld by the Court of Appeal.

At the time of the checks, Zenden had about 350 wholesale buyers, but the tax authorities called only 22 individual entrepreneurs “controlled” by the group, says Pavel Chaltsev, financial director of the company. He himself denies such a connection, stating that the tax inspectorates at the place of registration of these individual entrepreneurs issued certificates of independence and non-control to anyone. It is noteworthy that some entrepreneurs had a 20-year history of shoe trading even before Zenden and did not look like a controlled gasket for the withdrawal of proceeds, says Alexander Korolev, author of the Lawyer in a Restaurant channel. In addition, a number of them had a business other than selling shoes, such as repairing special equipment.

Due to tax risks, the network was forced to send all individual entrepreneurs a notice of termination of contracts, Chaltsev said. From some entrepreneurs, according to him, claims have already been received for damages and the preservation of agreements. As a result, in one case there is already a decision on the impossibility for Dom Odezhdy LLC to terminate the contract, however, the decision of the tax authorities to charge additional income tax and VAT for this entrepreneur came into force at the same time, Chaltsev is indignant. He also notes that if the appeal leaves the court decision in force, the tax service will be able to charge additional taxes to any franchise network that works with counterparties.

Anna Kononova, head of the antimonopoly practice of the Tsentralny Okrug law firm, draws attention to the fact that, according to the court’s conclusions, many processes with the mentioned individual entrepreneurs went through the central office of Zenden – for example, bills for renting premises, security, sick leave were coordinated there. All this suggests that these entrepreneurs were not independent. According to Kononova, if the network does not pay the debt voluntarily, then the tax office should start the enforcement procedure. The retailer, as the lawyer points out, can challenge this by filing a new lawsuit indicating violations of the deadlines for issuing a claim on the part of the inspection. According to the Tax Code, this had to be done within two years after the audit. A similar basis was in the dispute between another shoe retailer, Ralph Ringer JSC, and the Moscow tax inspectorates No. 15 and 18. The latter missed the legal deadlines, so at the end of December, the capital’s arbitration recognized the recovery of almost 1.5 billion rubles. taxes, insurance premiums, fines and penalties illegal.

With Zenden, the situation is still somewhat different, the company, unlike Ralph Ringer, did not declare that the deadlines were missed in the first and appeal instances, so the retailer will not be able to avoid liability, Alina Shleeva, a lawyer at the Propositum Law Office, does not agree. IEF Legal Advisor Denis Kozhevnikov agrees with her. According to him, judicial practice shows that taxpayers’ attempts to avoid paying additional charges on procedural grounds often end in failure for them. As an example, he cites the case of the Avtomonolit company, which in 2022 was unable to challenge the additional charge of about 300 million rubles. taxes and penalties. And the decision on Ralph Ringer has not yet been confirmed by the Court of Appeal, Kozhevnikov notes.

The Zenden network includes 250 own branded retail outlets and about 150 more franchised stores throughout Russia, where shoe brands Zenden, Instreet, Quartocomforto, Pulse, Martiseta and others are represented. In 2021, the revenue of Dom Odezhdy LLC increased by 23% to RUB 14.48 billion, net profit amounted to RUB 294.41 million. against a loss a year earlier.