What threatens Lerchek and her husband? Expert answers

At the beginning of the month, the family of blogger Lerchek and her husband Artem Chekalin experienced great difficulties. They were accused of evasion of taxes, the amount of which was 300 million rubles (then it was about 311 million rubles). After the couple got in touch and reassured subscribers that they admitted their guilt and plan to fix this issue in the near future. But the story didn’t end there: the court later confiscated the property and blocked the family’s accounts. And recently, Lerchek was banned for two months from using social networks. We spoke to an expert to understand what the final decision of the court might be.

Tatyana Knyzhova, tax consultant, chief accountant, head of the consulting company “Titul”

The first accusation brought by Chekalin was tax evasion on a particularly large scale – 311 million rubles. By simple reverse calculations, we understand that taxes must be paid more than 1 billion rubles. On this charge alone, bloggers can be fined 500,000 rubles and jailed for up to three years under Part 2 of Article 198 and Part 5 of Article 33 of the Criminal Code.

What did the Cekalins do to avoid paying this amount?

The Investigative Committee alleges that they used an illegal division of labor scheme in which revenues are distributed among various organizations or individual entrepreneurs to reduce the final tax amount. In other words, instead of one individual entrepreneur, several people registered with relatives and friends were used to continue to pay taxes under the simplified taxation system. The amount of revenue was checked within each IP to keep the limits set during the “simplification” and continue to pay less. For information: the allowable income limit for “simplified” in 2022 was 219.2 million rubles per year.

Additionally, on March 16, bloggers were charged with particularly large-scale criminal money laundering (aka “money laundering”). This accusation stems from the first: According to the IC, the Chekalins not only evaded paying taxes, but also bought foreign currency for the amount they “saved” through smuggling. In other words, they benefited from funds that were legally owned by the state. In connection with this accusation, bloggers are threatened by article 174.1, paragraph 4, paragraph b of the Criminal Code.

How will things develop further?

To hold the chekalins responsible for money laundering, the investigation must first prove that the bloggers deliberately evaded paying taxes by distributing the proceeds to different individual entrepreneurs. That is, an impressive evidence base needs to be collected regarding the illegality of the division of labor plan. This is quite difficult to do, but it is more a matter of time: obtaining a confession from the Cekalins themselves, collecting testimonies from witnesses who know the circumstances of certain transactions, examining the accused’s correspondence, the results of phone calls and listening to videotapes taken from security cameras, and the fact that fraudulent Individual entrepreneurs receive interest or commissions for services rendered. performing test purchases and other operational experiments, as well as obtaining approval for

Is a colony really waiting for the Chekalins?

As Valeria Chekalina (real name of blogger Lerchek – Ed.) noted on social networks, she is ready to pay off existing tax debts. Given these circumstances and the practice of similar cases, it is unlikely that Valeria and her husband would threaten her colony: in such cases real imprisonment is very rarely given. They are likely to pay the fine and pay off the debt, and the court may also impose a suspended sentence. Therefore, most likely, you will not have to wait for publications from the Chekalins colony.