MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian authorities hit the bruised Yukos oil giant with a battery of fresh tax claims which could see the firm`s total debt soar to an astronomical 17 billion dollars.
The news, which sent Yukos shares tumbling, came on the same day that a Moscow court extended by three months the jailing pending trial of its founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
"If I were free, it would be much more difficult to carry out the dangerous destruction of such a large company," Khodorkovsky, who faces seven charges of fraud and tax evasion, told the court before it extended his preventive detention until February 14, 2005.
The fresh complaints against Yukos included charges against the firm as a whole as well as charges against its main production subsidiary, Yuganskneftegas, officials and news reports said.
The charge against Yukos as a whole was an audit that said it had likely underpaid 6.7 billion dollars in 2002.
If Yukos is eventually ordered to repay that amount, which it can contest, its tax debts and penalties for 2000 through 2002 would stand at more than 14 billion dollars. The firm already faces bills of of 7.5 billion dollars for 2000 and 2001.
In addition, its production subsidiary Yugansk faced a two-fold claim -- an order to repay nearly one billion dollars in underpaid taxes for 2002 and an audit that said it had likely underpaid 2.25 billion in taxes for 2001.
Yugansk is the crown jewel in the Yukos conglomerate, which Russian authorities said they would sell in order to settle the firm`s tax bill.
Some observers say authorities aim to dismember Yukos and to transfer ownership of its choice assets into the hands of people who would not oppose President Vladimir Putin, as Khodorkovsky did.
Government officials have repeatedly denied the charges.
Monday`s news sent Yukos shares down 11.8 percent on Moscow`s ruble-denominated MICEX exchange. The firm`s market capitalization today is roughly nine billion dollars, a quarter of what it was before Khodorkovsky`s arrest last October and half of its potential final tax bill for 2000-2002.
The tax bill could grow even more, as authorities have hinted they may file additional charges for 2003.
Russia`s largest oil producer has had its accounts and assets frozen for months as prosecutors investigated it for tax infractions.
Critics say authorities are singling out Yukos on orders of the Kremlin to punish the political ambitions Khodorkovsky, who had openly funded opposition parties and challenged Kremlin policies in the oil and gas sector.
But senior government officials, including Putin, have repeatedly denied the charges, saying prosecutors are pursuing a tax cheat.
Khodorkovsky was arrested in October 2003 and is facing 10 years in prison if convicted of seven charges of fraud, tax evasion and embezzlement.
11/01/2004 - 19:59 GMT - AFP