Valiantsin Stefanovich appeals against fine issued by tax inspection

On 2 December Maryiana Valchkova, Judge of the Partyzanski District Court of Minsk, left standing the ruling of the Partyzanski District Tax Inspection of Minsk of 19 October 2011, according to which human rights defender Valiantsin Stefanovich was fined 4,727,330 rubles for “the failure to mention the whole sum of taxable income through inattentiveness”.

Mr. Stefanovich filed an appeal with the head of the Minsk City Court, in which he states that the ruling of the tax inspection is unlawful, groundless and terminable.

To prove his position, he points at the fact that on 19 October the deputy head of a department of the tax inspection Alena Kutnik, wanted him to sign the ruling about the administrative violation before the consideration of the case on its merits, which means that Stefanovich was found guilty before he could give any explanations. When Stefanovich pointed at it in his address to the tax inspection, its deputy head, Henadz Koval, stated that the document which had been presented to the human rights defender was a “draft ruling”. “The Process-Executive Code of Administrative Offenses doesn’t provide the existence of such document as “draft ruling of administrative offense”, doesn’t determine its production or, moreover, familiarization of the defendant in an administrative case with this draft paper,” reads the appeal.

According to Valiantsin Stefanovich, this circumstance shows that officers of the Partyzanski District Tax Inspection committed gross violations. Another gross violation is that the administrative case was considered without taking into account his explanations and other evidence which was important for taking a right decision. No account for the admissibility and accuracy of such evidence was paid either. Mr. Koval also dismissed Stefanovich’s motion for complete translation of the printout of the information on his account in the Lithuanian bank SEB, where the purpose of some financial transfers was indicated in English. This information had an extreme importance for finding whether Stefanovich was guilty of the violation he was charged with.

What concerns the consideration of his appeal at the Partyzanski District Court of Minsk, Valiantsin Stefanovich also points at gross process violations admitted by Judge Maryiana Valchkova. In particular, she admitted to the trial as many as three representatives of the tax inspection: its deputy head, H.Koval, the deputy head of an inspection department A.Kutnik and a representative of the juridical department. “These persons gave explanations to the court concerning the case. However, their explanations weren’t put, as no minutes of the trial were lead,” states the human rights defender. Moreover, these explanations aren’t mentioned or referred to in the verdict issued by Judge Valchkova.

“Thus, I think that my appeal was considered by the Partyzanski District Court of Minsk with gross violations of the present legislation. The judge held a competitive trial instead studying the legality of the ruling of the tax inspection,” writes Stefanovich in appeal to the head of the Minsk City Court.

He also attaches to the appeal a number of documents which are quite important and can be considered as a reason to review the case. In particular, these are statements from the sources of the financial transfers, in which it is stated that these means weren’t transferred for Stefanovich, but were destined as payments and transfers to third parties and therefore aren’t taxable.

“The bank printout doesn’t have a single seal or signature of a duty official of the SEB Bank. There are no seals or signatures of representatives of any state bodies of the Lithuanian Republic, either. That’s why the completeness and accuracy of the information, provided by the plaintiff, cannot be verified, as well as the fact that this very information was provided to state bodies of the Republic of Belarus,” points Stefanovich. That’s why he attaches a copy of the official statement of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Lithuania, according to which the information which was presented by it earlier doesn’t correspond to reality.