Ukrainian agricultural enterprises export grain at prices that are many times lower than the world ones, avoiding paying taxes.
Journalist Yuliya Samaieva writes about this in her article on the website of the Dzerkalo Tyzhnia [Mirror of the Week] publication.
"Not only that Ukrainian wheat is the cheapest in the world, but also the money from its sale "settles" not in Ukraine, depriving the state of a part of taxes and foreign exchange earnings," the journalist writes.
Samaieva emphasizes that a lot of Ukrainian wheat is sold for USD 100 or even USD 50 per ton, although world prices exceed USD 300.
Moreover, end consumers receive grain at market prices, and the margin remains for intermediary companies, which are most often connected with the exporters themselves.
One group of exporters is global traders or giant companies like Kernel. Most of them sell grain through related Swiss companies because the tax conditions are more attractive than in Ukraine, and significant amounts are saved on large volumes.
Samaieva emphasizes that the prices through Switzerland are not the lowest, and there are no cases of sales for USD 50-100 there.
"There are a lot of questions for global giants, but even more for domestic traders because these are Ukrainian companies that consciously do everything to pay the country as little taxes as possible, even during the war," the journalist emphasizes.
The material describes a specific example of our wheat deliveries to Bangladesh. Among global traders, it was difficult not to notice the unknown company AGRI1 TRADING. It is registered in Great Britain, has one shareholder, authorized capital is as much as GBP 100, and the registration date is July 26, 2022, four days after the signing of the "grain agreement" in Istanbul. The owner and director of the company is Ukrainian Nadiya Nahaieva.
"Interestingly, according to our data, we sold wheat in Bangladesh at an average price of USD 198. per ton, i.e., twice as cheap as the average market price, supplies are USD 300 more expensive. But from the British company of the Ukrainian woman Nahaieva, wheat was imported to Bangladesh already at a completely market price of USD 363 per ton," the journalist describes the price schemes.
The third type of sales is outright fraud with fictitious companies.
"Yes, the ever-living scheme with companies opening for pounds and lost passports. These are stories about outright criminality when grain trading is carried out by companies whose goal is simple - to sell grain and close until the deadline for the return of foreign exchange earnings arrives. This is a literal laundering of money from the country in the most difficult times for it," the article says.
According to Samaieva, government officials are preparing a number of amendments to the Law of Ukraine On Foreign Economic Activity, planning to introduce a minimum export price for grain tied to the exchange price on the global market and slightly adjusting the terms of obligations to return foreign exchange earnings.
But the journalist considers these measures insufficient because, firstly, they are planned only for the period of martial law and also solve only the problem of transfer pricing, not outright tax fraud.
As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, on March 13, the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Sergey Vershinin, stated that Russia is ready to extend the "grain agreement," but only for 60 days. Minister of Infrastructure Oleksandr Kubrakov noted that this contradicts the terms of the agreement.
On March 18, Minister of Infrastructure Oleksandr Kubrakov announced that the "grain agreement" was extended for 120 days.
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