“Total” – Investigation on tax evasion by the owner of “Total”, “Mediamaks” and “Total media centar”

The exhibits provide space for justified suspicion that between the tax years of 2008 and 2015, the suspect, as a director of the given legal entities, reduced the base for calculating the income tax, abused the right of tax allowances to value added tax and didn’t report personal incomes, which must be reported pursuant to the Law on Personal Income Tax

In the press conference from 23 March 2017, the Special Prosecution Office (SPO) announced that it has opened a new investigation under the code name “Total”. It’s about tax evasion by a physical entity who was owner and director of several marketing agencies “Total” DOOEL Skopje, “Mediamaks” and “Total media centar” DOOEL Skopje. According to the SPO, the owner of the given companies evaded to pay taxes for the period between 2008 and 2015 in the amount of approximately 180 thousand euro.

The prosecutor Fatime Fetai announced that this investigation comprises

the perpetration of one extended crime – Tax evasion from Article 279 Paragraph 2 relating to Paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code, and there is justified suspicion that the crime has been committed by a physical entity as an owner and director of the Marketing Company TOTAL MARKETING AGENCIJA DOOEL Skopje, director of the Marketing and Propaganda Company TOTAL MARKETING DOOEL Skopje, director of the Marketing and Market Research Company MEDIAMAKS DOOEL Skopje and owner and director of Marketing Company TOTAL MEDIA CENTAR DOOEL Skopje.

Namely, the evidence provide space for justified suspicion that for the years 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 the suspect and the legal entities intended to partially evade the payment of taxes by reporting false data in the bookkeeping records, final accounts and in the tax declaration about the facts that affect the amount of tax liabilities they were obliged to pay. By doing so, the aforementioned legal entities evaded to pay their tax liabilities in the significant amount of 7.466.981 denar or 121.414 euro, whereas the suspect evaded to pay his tax liabilities in the significant amount of 3.876.471 denar or 63.032 euro.

The exhibits provide space for justified suspicion that between the tax years of 2008 and 2015, the suspect, as a director of the given legal entities, reduced the base for calculating the income tax, abused the right of tax allowances to value added tax and didn’t report personal incomes, which must be reported pursuant to the Law on Personal Income Tax.

Namely, there is justified suspicion that the suspect used the legal entities as a disguise, and the procurement of commodities and services for his own were reported as procurement as procurements for the legal entities, although three legal entities didn’t have employees to use the procured equipment, and one legal entity had two employees, one employed in August 2014, and the other in September 2015, which doesn’t mean anything in this specific case in terms of the evaded tax liabilities…

The evidence also show that the amount paid for commodities and received services, which were actually used for personal needs and according to the Law on Personal Income Tax they are his personal incomes, wasn’t reported in the annual tax report sheet and by not reporting he evaded such tax liability as well.

The entire press conference is available on this link (in Macedonian), and the media reports regarding this event are available on this link (in Macedonian).

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