2003 by July 2006 if it were granted time to make payments. "This is neither a problem of money nor a problem of the wrong interpretation of tax legislation by the company. This is a problem of ownership," the ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Gerashchenko as saying at an investment forum in Washington. Yukos, Russia's biggest oil producer, is facing tax claims of US$7.5 billion (¤6 billion) for 2000-2001, while Yuganskneftegaz was recently slapped with a bill for almost US$1 billion (¤800 million). Analysts expect the final bill for 2000-2003 to be more than US$10 billion. Gerashchenko said that Western investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein had already submitted a valuation of between US$15.7 billion (¤12.7 billion) and US$17.4 billion (¤14.1 billion) to the Justice Ministry, ITAR-Tass reported. "The Russian authorities did not expect the price to be so high and are now taking measures to bring it down," he said. "There is no company in Russia that could purchase Yuganskneftegaz even for US$10 billion, while the state does not want a Western company to buy it." The yearlong legal case against Yukos and jailed former CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky is widely regarded as punishment for the oil tycoon's growing political clout. Thought the Kremlin has repeatedly cast the case as a just clampdown on shady bookkeeping and dubious tax-optimization schemes, oil and gas analysts expect the company's assets to be sold to Kremlin-friendly oil companies.
