"Gray" schemes: how the shadow electronics market destroys honest business
Kyiv • UNN
Due to the ignoring of duties and illegal import, "gray" sellers set prices lower. They use schemes with sole proprietors, avoid taxes, and deprive buyers of guarantees.
"Gray" electronics sellers are displacing legal businesses. After all, by ignoring duties and illegally importing goods, they can set prices for equipment 20%-40% lower than the "market". At the same time, sales on the "shadow" market take place in cash or cryptocurrency, without a fiscal receipt, Vitaliy Melnychenko, director of the official Apple distributor in Ukraine "Asbis‐Ukraine", explained in his comment Forbes.
According to him, such schemes allow to reduce prices on the "gray" market. At the same time, putting the buyer at risk, depriving him of warranty, the right to service and legal protection, in case of a defect.
"Gray" sellers have a price advantage of 20% to 40% if they ignore duties. In the shadow electronics market, sales mainly take place in cash or cryptocurrency without issuing a fiscal receipt
However, this is not the only scheme to reduce the cost of goods. Thus, "gray" companies often use related sole proprietorships, which formally operate under different names, but under a single brand - Yuriy Vasyuk from the State Tax Service said. This scheme makes it possible to reduce the turnover of each individual company and avoid tax burden.
Let's add
UNN discovered a criminal proceeding regarding "eStore" stores, which was investigated by law enforcement officers back in 2015. According to it, the network also uses the scheme of "splitting" sole proprietorships to avoid taxes.
The tax authorities also discovered the facts of artificial division of sales. Thus, during a long inspection of "gray" market players, it was revealed that legal entities involved about 300 sole proprietorships on a simplified system. The turnover of 170 already identified sole proprietorships amounted to UAH 1.72 billion. Thanks to this, "shadow" sellers evaded VAT payment of over UAH 286 million. The State Tax Service did not name specific networks, but according to journalist-investigator Yevhen Plinsky, it is about "Yabko" and Yabluka, reported UNN.
Let us remind you
Every day more than 5,000 contraband Apple gadgets are imported into Ukraine. Because of this, the Ukrainian budget "underreceives" millions of hryvnias in taxes.
