The State Tax Service (STS) has imposed fines and additional charges totaling over three billion hryvnias on the tobacco factory “Hoshcha” over the past year and a half.
This is reported by Rivne24
LLC “Ukrainian Tobacco Production,” which owns the factory, does not plan to pay this amount to the budget of Ukraine. Instead, the company has filed lawsuits in court challenging the fines and tax liabilities, as well as attempting to regain its cigarette production license.
According to information from the STS, the fines from tax notification decisions (TND) are as follows:
- No. 660/35000701 – fine of 100,441.86 UAH VAT.
- No. 661/35000701 – overstatement of negative VAT value:
- 2021 – 645,661 UAH;
- 2022 – 669,461 UAH;
- 2023 – 228,422,569 UAH.
- No. 662/35000701 – reduction of negative VAT by 42,360,537 UAH.
- No. 663/35000701 – understated excise tax by 2,337,213,516.93 UAH, fine – 584,303,379.25 UAH.
In total, the fines amount to 3,193,715,746.04 UAH.
LLC “Ukrainian Tobacco Production” is contesting both the STS’s decision to revoke the license and the TND in administrative courts. The timeline of events is as follows:
- 19.12.2024 – The Northern Interregional STS issued a TND.
- 02.04.2025 – The STS, by decision No. 301-r/ler, revoked license No. 99111202300003 issued to UTP.
- 19.05.2025 – A lawsuit was filed with the Rivne District Administrative Court (case No. 460/8431/25) to annul the TND. The court proceedings are ongoing, with the next hearing scheduled for 24.12.2025.
- 06.10.2025 – A lawsuit was filed with the Rivne District Administrative Court (case No. 460/18117/25) to annul the decision regarding the revocation of the license. The court proceedings are ongoing.
It is worth noting that in March of this year, law enforcement discovered a transit warehouse with counterfeit cigarettes produced at the illegal “Hoshcha” factory in the village of Barmaky, Rivne District. Over a thousand boxes of counterfeit cigarettes from well-known brands such as Rothmans, Winston, and Kent were found in the warehouse, as well as “branded” cigarettes from “Hoshcha” — Mustang, which had counterfeit excise stamps.