09 July 2021, Friday, 17:40 242

Famous Cosmetologist Mariya Fedchuk Inflicts USD 1.5 Million Damage On State When Evading Taxes - Media

Редактор: Daria Zubkova

A well-known cosmetologist, certified trainer of the Allergan Aesthetics international company, Mariya Fedchuk, together with her husband Volodymyr Fedchuk and ex-director of the MDA Ukraine company, Olha Demchenko, organized a tax evasion scheme, as a result of which the state inflicted USD 1.5 million damage.

RBC-Ukraine announced this.

The publication notes that the company sells almost all of its goods through several companies, which Mariya Fedchuk and Olha Demchenko presented to business partners as reliable distributors.

"These are their own companies. To be more specific, these are individual entrepreneurs registered to the friends and relatives of the company's top management. In total, in 2020, about 10 individual entrepreneurs were registered, which were engaged in "the activities of intermediaries specializing in the sale of other goods." Among the persons on whom they were registered are Volodymyr Fedchuk himself, the spouse of the chief accountant of MDA Ukraine Andrii Blazhevskyi and other related persons,” writes RBC-Ukraine.

This sales scheme was organized to pay as little taxes as possible.

"Let's say that MDA Ukraine bought a conditional product for UAH 50. Then it resold it to its own firms for UAH 55. And they, in turn, sold it for UAH 100. But MDA Ukraine pays taxes not from UAH 100, but from UAH 55! Moreover, the goods were shipped directly from the warehouses of MDA Ukraine. That is, in fact, all operations existed only on paper," the journalists note.

The publication believes that the result of these frauds was an attempt by Mariya Fedchuk to "negotiate" with the auditor to hide the documents of MDA Ukraine, as well as the opening of a criminal case against company officials.

One of the former employees of the company, on condition of anonymity, said that employees of the company could purchase one of the products at a purchase price of UAH 400. Its price in online stores now exceeds UAH 1,500. If we subtract the margin of the end distributor, then the price of cosmetics could have tripled.

"The very fact of such manipulations raises a number of questions for the Fedchuk spouses. After all, it is one thing to talk about patriotic feelings, and quite another to honestly run your business and regularly pay taxes to the budget," the publication emphasizes.

After more than six months of such activity, Mariya Fedchuk decided to get rid of business partners and transfer all assets from MDA Ukraine to a new company with an alike name – M.D.A. Ukraine, where she was already the sole owner.

"It is difficult to say exactly how much funds were withdrawn from the company in this way and settled in their pockets. According to preliminary estimates, this way, from June 1, 2020 to the current moment, the financial damage to the company due to such fraud could have amounted to at least USD 1.5 million," notes the publication.

At the same time, the journalists believe that this situation may affect the clients of MDA Ukraine, who are de facto were made accomplices in the crime.