Russian court says Disney owes taxes....

[WDWmazprty]

Check it out:

http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2011/07/14/Russian-court-says-Disney-owes-taxes/UPI-36011310657250/


Russian court says Disney owes taxes
Published: July 14, 2011 at 11:27 AM

MOSCOW, July 14 (UPI) -- A Russian court ruled Walt Disney Studios Sony Picture Releasing, one of Russia's largest film distributors, owes the country about $2.6 million in taxes.

A district tax inspection office said the distributor used two phony companies when working with Moscow-based Cinelab, which prints copies of films for movie theaters, The Moscow Times reported Thursday.

The companies serving as middlemen between Disney and Cinelab had no capital and no employees, tax officials said, adding that payments through the two firms helped Disney lower its taxes.

The Moscow Arbitration Court rejected Disney's argument that it didn't know the two companies were bogus because it wasn't legally required to examine the operations of its partners, Kommersant reported.

Lawyer Anton Sonichev told the Times that Russian tax authorities couldn't prove Disney deliberately tried to create a mechanism to avoid paying taxes.

"All that was proved in court was the distributor's negligence," he said.



Read more: http://www.upi.com/Business_News/20...-owes-taxes/UPI-36011310657250/#ixzz1SAolrSTF

 

[puntagordabob]

So the Russian companies walk away owing nothing... If Disney can prove that it paid the taxes to the companies in question then I would say go after those companies and not Disney.

Perhaps when Disney decides to do its own work next time rather than using a Russian company then that would be good! If Russia insists on Disney using a Russian company Id say Nope...