Odesa-based OnlyFans blogger sentenced to 266 thousand in fines and taxes

The Odesa District Administrative Court sided with the tax authorities in a dispute with blogger Vira Shengelya and ordered her to pay a quarter of a million to Ukraine.

This was reported by the Economic News.

It all started when the British tax authorities provided the State Tax Service of Ukraine with data on the income of Ukrainian residents on OnlyFans. One of the recipients of the funds was Vira Shengelia from Odesa.

According to the international exchange, in 2021-2022, the model received a total of USD 34,562 from the British company Fenix International Ltd (owner of OnlyFans). In hryvnia equivalent at the NBU exchange rate, this is more than UAH 1 million of undeclared income. The model insisted that she had paid taxes in the UK because the income came from a British resident. Moreover, because the UK has a PAYE system, the money had allegedly already been received cleanly. In addition, the blogger insisted that OnlyFans was just a platform, not an employer.

However, the judges decided that since the model was a tax resident of Ukraine, she was obliged to declare all foreign income. In addition, Vera Shengel did not provide any official documents confirming that she paid tax in the UK, and she ignored letters from the Ukrainian tax authorities and failed to provide the necessary documents, which resulted in additional fines.

The amount to be recovered amounted to UAH 266,462: UAH 237,700 in personal income tax and a fine, UAH 19,751 in military duty and a fine, and UAH 9,000 in administrative fines for failure to provide information and documents.

In total, OnlyFans content creators in Ukraine managed to appeal and partially or completely cancel fines from the State Tax Service in 27 cases. Moreover, every third case won was a complaint in Odesa region.

Кирило Бойко