The company documented the sale of non-food oil to a VAT payer registered in Estonia and applied a 0% VAT rate to these transactions. However, during the inspection, it was found that the oil was not transported to Estonia at all.
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Trucks crossed the Latvian border, drove about 10 kilometers, and then turned back to Lithuania. Tachograph data showed that such trips usually lasted about half an hour, and in some cases only 10–15 minutes,” said Judita Stankienė, head of the Kaunas County VMI, in a press release.
The information provided by the carrier confirmed that the cargo was neither unloaded nor handed over to the Estonian company in Latvia. The carrier was given two waybills marked with the same date and number – one for transporting the cargo towards Latvia, the other for its return to Lithuania to another Lithuanian company.
Essentially, only the cargo transport documents were changed, and the same vehicle with the same cargo returned to Lithuania.
During the inspection, it was found that the Estonian company was included in the transaction chain only formally, and the short-term export of the cargo outside Lithuania was used solely to create conditions for unjustified application of the 0% VAT rate.
Kaunas County VMI concluded that the company participated in a VAT fraud scheme and unjustifiably did not pay VAT.
This is not the first such violation by the company. A similar VAT evasion scheme was identified during a previous tax inspection, for which the company was already fined the maximum 50% penalty.
Despite this, violations of the same nature were carried out again, so this time a double penalty was applied under the Tax Administration Law.
An additional 482,903 euros of VAT was calculated for the company and a fine of the same amount – 482,903 euros – was imposed. This is the first case of applying a double penalty in the practice of Kaunas County VMI.
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