Prosecutors from the Prosecutor Generalʼs Office have reported suspicions to the former director and chief accountant of a Ukrainian airline. They are suspected of intentionally evading taxes by more than 344 million hryvnias — that is, in particularly large amounts, as well as of knowingly entering false data into tax returns.
This was reported by the Prosecutor Generalʼs Office.
The investigation believes that the Cypriot company that owned the planes and the Ukrainian air carrier entered into leasing agreements — a form of long-term rental — for Boeing 737 and Embraer aircraft.
In 2017-2022, the Ukrainian company paid the Cypriot company over 3.4 billion hryvnias for the use of aircraft. The former management of the Ukrainian company took advantage of the Convention between Ukraine and Cyprus on the avoidance of double taxation and applied a zero tax rate when making payments to the Cypriot company. That is, it did not pay any money to the state budget.
But during the investigation, law enforcement officers found out that this rate did not correspond to either the terms of the contracts or the real situation with the use of aircraft. In fact, the company should have applied a rate of 10%, not 0%. Because of this, the state budget of Ukraine lost more than 344 million hryvnias.
Earlier, in December 2024, as part of this criminal proceeding, the court seized 7 aircraft — Boeing 737 and Embraer E190 — that appear in these leasing agreements. Their estimated value is $40 million.
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