The State Revenue Service (SRS) of Latvia has initiated the procedure for collecting overdue tax debts from the alcoholic beverage producer "Amber Latvijas balzams," according to a company announcement on the Nasdaq Riga exchange.
The message states that the State Revenue Service (SRS) has decided to collect overdue tax payments from "Amber Latvijas balzams" — as of Thursday, November 6, the amount totaled 17,710,467 euros.
The distillery located on Chaka Street in Riga claims that the SRS's decision does not significantly restrict its business activities.
At the same time, the company explained that it had previously used a tax payment deferral, but now the management has decided to pay off the excise tax debt as soon as possible. The company claims to be actively cooperating with tax authorities to resolve the situation and promised to inform about further developments.
The owner of Amber Beverage Group is billionaire Yuri Shefler.
The demanded nearly 18 million euros is evidently a small amount for billionaire Shefler, but significant for his vodka factory. It was previously reported that in 2024, the turnover of "Amber Latvijas balzams" amounted to 78.205 million euros, which is 20.1% less than the previous year, while the profit was 4.1 million euros.
After the collapse of the USSR, Yuri Shefler transferred the vodka brands "Stolichnaya" and "Moscow" to himself, bought a small factory in Riga, and began bottling vodka there for bars in Western Europe and the USA. This is how he earned several billion.
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