You're reading: Shuster says tax service wants to question him

Journalist Savik Shuster, host of Ukraine’s top political talk show, says he was summoned for questioning in a criminal case opened against him because of tax evasion allegedly exceeding $410,000.

“Due to the results of a tax audit, a criminal case was launched against me,” he said during his latest show on Jan 15. “This is very interesting, because, as far as I know, we are the biggest taxpayers in our district.”

In his words, on Jan.14 he received an order to appear at the questioning in the investigation department of the tax office in Kyiv on Jan.18.

“The notice does not specify in which quality (suspect or witness) they summoned me,” he said.

Another disturbing detail, according to Shuster, was that the questioning was scheduled for Jan.18, which is one day before the appointed hearing of his appeal concerning the tax audit itself.

“Before starting investigative actions in terms of the criminal case against me, let’s wait for Jan.19,” he said during the show. “Is our appeal denied? Not denied? Then please, summon me, ask me any questions, I would come and answer.”

According to Yaroslav Romanchuk, Shuster’s legal adviser and managing partner with Eucon international legal center, told the Kyiv Post that the criminal case couldn’t be launched until Shuster’s administrative appeal was heard.

The State Fiscal Service of Ukraine did not respond to the Kyiv Post at the moment of the publication.

Tax officers knocked on Shuster Studio’s doors last October, two weeks after its show Shuster Live was cut off the air on Ukraine’s leading Channel 1+1 right before the program was supposed to start.

Shuster then said that it was “an agreement between the owner (oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky) of Channel 1+1 and the president’s administration.”

President Petro Poroshenko’s spokespeople denied having anything to do with the incident, while the administration of Channel 1+1 released a statement that the show would not be broadcast because of the highly “intense” and “politicized” events in the country.

Since then the show is being broadcast online.

After almost two months of tax audit, tax officers brought Shuster the protocol about violations, he said at the show on Nov.20.

“The document was 108 pages long. They calculated that my violations exceeded Hr 10 million ($410,000),” he said, and promised to review the documents properly.

In a month, he said he did and reported that his lawyers filed the administrative appeal. Romanchuk, talking at Shuster Live on Dec.18, explained that the lawyers that supported Shuster’s studio, found the violations by those, who provided the audit, as well as by those, who launched the criminal investigation.

He then also said that Shuster suspected that the audit’s results could have been the sign of the pressure on him connected to his professional activities.

Former head of the Security Service of Ukraine and head of the non-governmental organization Anti-Corruption Movement Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, talking at the second Anti-Corruption Forum in Kyiv on Dec.23, reported about the political persecution against Shuster.

“He is persecuted only for giving the opportunity for people like us at this forum to name the corrupt officials,” he said. “Special services of Ukraine received an order from Ukraine’s leaders to dig up for compromising information about Shuster – what loans (he had), in which country, where did he live.”

Kyiv Post has not yet received the response by press services of the president and of the Security Service of Ukraine on the matter.