Medvedchuk's former Glusco gas stations, which are managed by Naftogaz Oil Trading, are among the top five leaders in terms of tax payments to the state budget.
This is evidenced by the analysis of the director of the consulting company A-95 Serhiy Kuyun, who published the analysis on his Facebook page.
Kuyun investigated how much taxes Ukrainian gas stations paid in the second quarter of 2023. He analysed the largest sellers, which account for 80% of sales through gas stations.
"All market indicators showed record profitability. If in 2021 there was a difference of up to UAH 4 per litre between wholesale and retail, in the last two years it has been at least UAH 8, and often more. Thus, the margin has increased significantly, which means that there should be significantly more taxes," the expert said.
However, he noted that in the vast majority of networks, the tax burden remained unchanged.
"OKKO, Socar, Shell, AMIC, U.GO (Glusco) are the leaders of the rating, which showed a significant increase in tax payments - by one and a half to two times by 2021," the expert said.
For example, OKKO, with a market share of 22%, paid 50% of total tax payments in the market and 82% of income tax. "(Together with WOG, 90% of the CPT for the quarter was formed). The two of them have 750 stations, so the rest - more than 6,000 filling stations - shared 10% of the market's profit. Except for the two networks, everyone is naked as a jaybird," Kuyun said.
According to him, Avantage 7 has been the anti-leader of the tax rating for many years. "The state still owes these businessmen and businesswomen. 44 coins for every liter! At the same time, the company has opened several new facilities over the past year and is building two huge gas stations near Zhytomyr, which is at least $3mn," the expert added.
He published a salary rating for gas station chains and noted that officially low salaries are actually compensated by cash surcharges. This scheme allows for "modest figures" in terms of VAT and profit.
"In September, gasoline prices at Avantage 7 and BRSM are lower than the cost of imported product brought to the filling stations. Other chains, especially those with small sales, have to think about how to compete with this, as being "white" means selling much more expensive, which means losing customers and eventually just leaving the market. But there are few options to reduce fuel costs, and one is to start cheating on taxes. It's a funnel that will eventually drag the entire market into it if nothing is done," Kuyun emphasised.
The expert stated that it is the state that should establish clear rules of the game and ensure their observance. "The experience of the leader of the tax rating shows that it is possible to pay record taxes, high official salaries and still have a solid profit and send hundreds of millions of hryvnias to help the army," Kuyun concluded.
The Glusco gas station chain was arrested by the court last May due to alleged ties to Russia. Then Glusco was transferred to the management of the ARMA. After that, the Agency, with the approval of the Cabinet of Ministers, appointed Naftogaz Oil Trading as the manager of the seized assets.
Now the company claims to have resumed commercial operations of the filling stations and brought the network to stable operation during massive power outages.