PRAGUE: The tax office has uncovered the biggest case of tax evasion on VAT in the Czech Republic, when two companies gained 4.5 billion crowns by illegal transactions with precious metals, General Financial Directorate (GFR) spokeswoman Petra Petlachova told.
The financial directorate filed a criminal complaint over the tax fraud. Petlachova said she would not name any company.
She said the companies did not pay the value-added tax (VAT) in chain deals with precious metals such as gold, silver and platinum.
This is called a carousel fraud. The goods are repeatedly sold, which increases the VAT. The firm that should have paid the VAT does not do so, but another firm in the chain deducts the VAT from its payments to the state.
“The state is giving but does not get (the VAT),” Petlachova said.
The transaction were mainly materialised in the Czech Republic, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Slovakia, she added.
“The companies formed an elaborate and fluid fraudulent trade chain,” GFR general director Martin Janecek has said.
“It was necessary to check almost 120 links of the chain. The tax office managed to do so thanks to very complicated steps in less than a year,” Janecek said.
