In Samara FTS has again taken action against human rights activist Lyudmila Kuzmina

On November 18, the Federal Tax Service (FTS) has filed a lawsuit against the head of Samara branch of the ‘Golos-Volga’ Foundation Lyudmila Kuzmina, claiming to exact more than 2 million rubles for alleged tax evasion. Ludmila Kuzmina was summoned to the Samara regional court on November 20.

‘Tax Service picked on the Foundation ‘Golos-Volga’, now the authority narrowed its focus to one person Lyudmila Kuzmina, renaming claims for tax evasion to the damage to State. It will try to sue out the funds by filing a civil lawsuit against Lyudmila, despite the fact that the criminal case was closed and there was no trial’, - commented the co-chairman of movement ‘Golos’ Grigory Melkonyants.

Kuzmina feels confident about her innocence: ‘Firstly, the donation contract, which I have signed, does not fall under the taxation regime. Secondly, even if I would not have signed such an agreement, I would have not been able to be guided by malice, as in public foundations an individual person cannot operate such amount of funds. These funds cannot be shared among the members of foundation, as they can only be used for socially useful purpose. All these years the only purpose was struggle for transparent elections’, - she explained in an interview with ‘Gagarin Park’.

‘I have no expectation in regard to the judiciary - said Kuzmina. - The last time we have asked to close the case, but no court have done that until it was closed by the Investigation Committee. And this time, I am sure that the court will rule in favor of the Tax Service’.

I would like to remind that the criminal case on tax evasion against Ludmila Kuzmina was closed on September 16; as a result the court withdrew the arrest of her property.

The claims of Tax Service are related to the activities of 'Golos-Volga' in 2010-2012, when human rights activists were working on the project 'Transparent Elections' and coordinating the work of election observers in a number of Russian regions using the donations of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The Federal Tax Service believed that project had been ostensibly in the interests of the United States, therefore the donations of USAID were found as income of human rights activists and respectively they had to pay income tax.

In an interview with Radio Liberty, the former Deputy Executive Director of the Association 'Golos' (the incumbent co-chairman of the movement 'Golos') Grigory Melkonyants referred to the claims in regard to Ludmila Kuzmina as absurd. According to him, human rights activists received money from USAID in 2009 - 2011 - before Russia banned the Agency for International Development in the country. The charges against Kuzmina were brought only in 2012. 'It turns out that 'Golos' found itself in a kind of hostage that is triggered by the International Relations and the organization turns to be responsible for the actions of third parties', - said Melkonyants.