Blogger Lerchek for the Investigative Committee and the Federal Tax Service is just a warm-up

The girl herself is experiencing the death of her grandmother. Experts also state that the tax authorities and law enforcement officers will check all bloggers, and not just large ones. The goal is to whitewash the market and replenish the budget.

Law enforcement officers have new claims in connection with the “laundering” of money. According to law enforcement officers , back in the spring of 2021, Lerchek, together with her husband Artyom, illegally purchased 130 million rubles in dollars. As part of the new criminal case, Chekalina faces up to three years in prison.

During the investigation, the court banned the blogger and her husband from using the Internet. They have over 13 million followers on social media. Valeria herself, according to Baza, asked not to forbid her from using social networks. According to the girl, she kept a “kind family blog” with stories about her children, and this was the only family income. Now Valeria “doesn’t know” how to earn money.

Recall that the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation reported that a criminal case was initiated against the Chekalins on the fact of tax evasion and complicity in tax evasion by an individual, committed on an especially large scale. Law enforcement officers are sure that Ms. Chekalina illegally split up the business and evaded paying taxes in the amount of more than 311 million rubles.

Law enforcement officers came to the townhouse of bloggers near Moscow with a search on March 7, indicting and taking a written undertaking not to leave.

– According to the investigation, from July 2020 to July 2022, Chekalina, being an individual entrepreneur and using a simplified taxation system with an allowable income limit of 150 million rubles a year, received income from the provision of services for the implementation of fitness marathons in a significantly larger amount, not wanting to to switch to the general taxation system and pay the VAT and personal income tax provided for by this tax regime, attracted a spouse and other persons from among their relatives as accomplices, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation reported.

“BV” studied in detail the business of the spouses and their relatives. Revenue from the main company Bee Fit LLC (online retail), where Ms. Chekalina is the main beneficiary (75%), is really impressive: in 2021 it grew by 107%, amounting to 2.9 billion rubles, net profit – 274 .9 million rubles. In 2021, the company paid more than 506 million rubles in taxes, it has only 129 rubles in debt.

Attention is drawn to the fact that bloggers and related people and companies in open sources do not have not only tax debts, but also courts initiated against them by the tax authorities. If the Federal Tax Service usually charges additional taxes and tries to collect them through the courts, then for some reason a criminal case was immediately initiated against the Chekalins.

Forbes insiders note that although this is the loudest, it is not the only such case against bloggers and influencer marketing agencies. According to sources, since the spring of last year, in relation to the latter, requests from the Federal Tax Service for the provision of documents on cooperation with major bloggers have become more frequent, Forbes learned. One of the goals is to whitewash the markets of influencer marketing and infobusiness, the income of whose participants can be measured in billions of rubles, experts say.

The tax authority requests documents as part of on-site tax audits – according to lawyers, this format allows the department to collect more information. Among the documents that the tax authority asks to provide are agreements with the blogger’s IP, extending legal force from the beginning of 2019 to the end of 2021, acceptance and delivery certificates, invoices for payment, a media plan, final reports on these agreements, business correspondence, information about who is the administrator and the actual owner of the account.

At the same time, experts state that often bloggers really do not register their income – until recently, many did not even have individual entrepreneurs, and they took money for their marathons or advertising in cash.

– Against the backdrop of rapid growth in business and income, legal and financial elements often fell short of the general level, analysts state. Although over the past few years, the influencer marketing market has become “significantly whiter”. However, the infobusiness and blogging are still on the sidelines.

ABA lawyer Anastasia Krasnikova is sure that the attention of the tax authorities to these areas has been growing since 2018. Then the Federal Tax Service of Russia and Rosfinmonitoring agreed on the prompt exchange of information on countering the legalization of proceeds from crime and the financing of terrorism. After that, Rosfinmonitoring began to transfer all data on suspicious transactions on bank accounts to the tax service.

At the same time, a number of experts believe that if earlier the tax authorities actually checked bloggers, but only “if someone crossed the road.” Now it is carried out in the “carpet bombing” mode and in the near future will affect not only major bloggers.

The main goals are pressure to control future placements, the complete whitewashing of this market, as well as replenishment of the budget – with 0.2% of the largest bloggers, you can get up to 80% of the result, while intimidating hundreds of others.

Moreover, bloggers are considered a “convenient target” – there will definitely be accounting problems here “and no one will express compassion for them.”

Recall that the Chekalinas in the media noted that they violated the law “by an absurd accident, simply not keeping track of finances,” but said that they “plan to deal with the problems in the very near future.” In their social networks, none of them comment on this topic. The last post by Ler_chek is dedicated to the death of her grandmother Nina.