CJSC "Rusmetal" lost the court to the Tula Federal Tax Service by almost 1 billion rubles

From the court documents, you can learn that the claims of the Federal Tax Service in the Tula region concerned the tax period from 2021 to 2023. According to the results of the on-site inspection, the inspectors concluded that the company had implemented a tax avoidance scheme.

The plant was suspected of hiding the amount of VAT from the sale of copper cathodes and rods through a chain of technical counterparties, which led to understatement of taxes.

Representatives of CJSC Rusmetal in turn insisted on their innocence. According to their version, the company acted only as a contractor: it received tolling raw materials (copper scrap) from Mostal-Invest LLC, processed it at its facilities and returned the finished products to the customer without acquiring ownership of it.

The protection of the plant pointed to real production, confirming this by high electricity consumption (15 thousand 355 kWh in December 2025), the presence of smelting furnaces and electrolysis baths. In addition, representatives of the company insisted that the tax service is trying to collect the same amount of VAT from two different legal entities, including DCabel, which violates the principles of tax law.

The court, having studied the arguments of the parties, concluded that the arguments of CJSC Rusmetal were untenable. The court decision states that Rusmetal, Mostal-Invest and a number of other related companies (including DCabel) represent a single group of affiliates.

As it turned out, the shareholders of Rusmetal Pavel Dubrovsky and Alexander Kutsenko simultaneously own shares in Mostal-Invest and Mostal. Management and ordinary employees (for example, technical director D.Y. Tyshko) switched from one company to another, and the IP addresses for reporting and banking operations of the companies coincided.

In addition, the general director of Rusmetal Roman Lebedik could not name most of his employees and heads of workshops, and rarely appeared on the territory of the plant. Witnesses during interrogations reported a lack of accounting in the field and that financial flows were controlled by others.

For its part, the tax service proved that finished products were actually sold to end customers on behalf of technical companies-commissioners, and Rusmetal only formalized processing services so as not to pay VAT on the sale of goods. The intermediary organizations involved in the scheme had no material resources, were not at registration addresses, and their leaders did not appear for interrogation.

The court concluded that Rusmetal deliberately distorted information about the facts of economic life, creating an artificial document flow. This allowed a group of persons to accumulate proceeds from the sale of copper at technical links, without paying tax to the budget, while Rusmetal paid VAT only from processing fees.

The plant’s attempt to suspend the process until the completion of the criminal case against officials (initiated in July 2026 under Article 199 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) was also rejected. Against whom the criminal case was opened, and at what stage the investigation is now – it is not clear.

Thus, the Arbitration Court of the Tula region completely refused to satisfy the requirements of CJSC Rusmetal. Interim measures that previously suspended recovery shall be subject to cancellation after the decision has entered into legal force. The company collected a state duty in the amount of 30 thousand rubles.

It is worth noting that the Federal Tax Service of the region has already reduced the amount of the fine by half, taking into account the decrease in revenue, the presence of losses and the status of the enterprise as a small and medium-sized business entity. In the near future, the decision may be appealed to the Twentieth Arbitration Court of Appeal of the Tula region.

In parallel, a criminal case is being investigated on this fact, which may entail additional responsibility for the management of the plant.

As previously wrote “MK in Tula”, CJSC “Rusmetal” exists in Novomoskovsk since 2010. The main activity is the production of cast iron, steel and ferroalloys. Revenue for 2024 - 46 million rubles, for 2025 - 0 rubles, no profit, but there are losses in the amount of 5.7 million rubles. The general director is Roman Lebedik.

According to the Rusprofile website, the amount of debt on taxes and fees of the company as of November 10, 2025 amounted to 1.5 billion rubles. As of September 1, 2026, there was information about arrears on taxes and fees and fines in the amount of 593 thousand rubles.

MK in Tula is monitoring developments.