Shuster announces that criminal case against him opened for tax evasion

The director general of the production company "Savik Shuster Studiya" and TV anchor Savik Shuster announced that against him a criminal case was started for allegedly evading taxes. Shuster announced this in the air of "Shuster Live" on January 15, Interfax-Ukraina informs.

“Based on results of the tax inspection, a criminal case was started against me for evading payment of taxes - quite interesting, because I know that in our district we are the largest taxpayer”, he said.

Shuster also said that on January 14 he received a notification summoning him to the tax inspection. “I am summoned to the investigation department of tax inspection in relation to this criminal case. the notification does not specify in what capacity they summon me” Shuster added.

As a background, recently former head of Security Service of Ukraine, leader of NGO "Anti-corruption movement" Valentyn Nalyvaiko claims that Ukrainian authorities instructed its branches to gather dirt about journalist Savik Shuster.

Also, on October 2, 2015, Savik Shuster shared information, that six tax inspectors brought him notification on inspection of his studio, which later resulted in claim of tax evasion for amount of 10 million hryvnias, which Shuster denied, and was intending to file petition of appeal on this. On September 18, channel "1+1" suddenly refused to broadcast Savik's program right before the scheduled time, and they had to change the channel of broadcasting to "112 Ukraina".