MOSCOW, October 31 (RAPSI) – The Moscow District Commercial Court has dismissed an appeal lodged by the Tavern Taras Bulba restaurant chain owner Yury Beloivan against an order to collect 81.1 million rubles ($1.3 million) from him in favor of the Federal Tax Service, according to court records.

The cassation instance has therefore upheld the ruling on the matter delivered by the Moscow Commercial Court on March 7 and an appeals court’s ruling of May 30.

Moreover, in August, the Ninth Commercial Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s decision to recover 76.4 million rubles (about $1.2 million) jointly from Beloivan and the restaurant chain’s director Anastasia Ivanova.

In April, the Moscow Commercial Court granted a relevant lawsuit filed by the Federal Tax Service. The ruling read that a tax check had revealed that from January 2011 to late December 2013, the company underreported the details of income.  In 2016, the tax inspection held that the restaurant managers must pay 76.4 million rubles.

Moreover, in March, the court ordered recovery of almost 164 million rubles (about $2.6 million at current exchange rate) from Beloivan. In late July, the Ninth Commercial Court of Appeals upheld the ruling.

In July, Moscow’s Basmanny District Court passed a 2-year prison sentence on Beloivan as part of the tax evasion case.

Investigators claimed that between January 2011 and March 2014, Beloivan failed to disclose the income effective principal in tax bills and stripped a taxation base to evade the payment of taxes from his 8 Tavern Taras Bulba restaurants. According to the Russian Investigative Committee, he concealed over 650 million rubles in taxes (over 10 million rubles).

The Moscow City Court in early October reduced his sentence from 24 to 21 months.