Tatiana Navka and Dmitry Peskov closed the American question

Tatyana Navka, the spouse of the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov, has repeatedly denied information about her having American citizenship.
06.08.2020
Origin source
The IRS has put an end to this issue. "Octagon" found in the latest bulletin of the American Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which publishes lists of those who have renounced US citizenship, the name Navka.

The IRS Bulletin was published back in May 2020. For the past 15 years, figure skater Tatyana Navka has avoided public explanations of the basis on which she lived in the United States at least in 1992-2006. There were only indirect signs that she had American citizenship, and in 2015, Tatyana Navka in an interview strongly denied this fact. However, in a recent document of American tax authorities, the probability of an error (the appearance of Navka's namesake in the list) in this context tends to zero.

The IRS publishes such lists every three months. From these reports, in the past few years, it became known, for example, about the withdrawal of US citizenship from hockey player Pavel Bure (2016) and businessman Oleg Tinkov (2013). The latter refusal from the American ID (passport) did not save him from prosecution by the tax authorities: the businessman is accused of concealing $ 1 billion of income. Tinkov faces a colossal fine and several years in prison.

Formally, there is a caveat in the IRS documents that in these lists (they are officially called Quarterly Publication of Individuals Who Have Chosen to Expatriate) there are also people who have abandoned the green card. Nevertheless, American specialized lawyers argue (evidence here, here and here) that, in fact, ex-holders of green cards are not found in these lists. But Navka could be a rare exception.

Since she lived in the United States for more than eight years, she, as the owner of a fortune of more than $ 2 million, was obliged to pay the so-called "expatriation tax", "expatriation tax" (aka exit tax) - for fraudulent payment of which are pursuing Tinkov. The amount of tax is calculated based on the amount that a person would have earned by selling all their assets at market price the day before renouncing citizenship / green card. There are many variables in the calculation - the rate can reach 23.8 percent.

When "Octagon" asked Navka about her withdrawal from citizenship, she replied in the negative: "For your information, I never had US citizenship." At the same time, Tatyana Navka confirmed to the Octagon that she had refused the American green card.

The Guardian, together with the Dossier investigation center of the Kremlin's enemy Mikhail Khodorkovsky, reported in February 2019 a number of tax violations by the former figure skater and her ex-husband Alexander Zhulin.

In 2015, opposition politician Alexei Navalny demanded that the IRS conduct a tax audit against Navka. However, unlike Tinkov's case, her tax debt was estimated at tens of thousands of dollars. Even if we are talking about a couple of million dollars in a fine, Navka, without much damage to the family budget, could settle this issue before giving up the green card. The athlete's annual official income is about 200 million rubles, the highest among the wives of employees of the Presidential Administration.

Among other motives for refusing Navka's ties to the United States, there may be plans for civil service in Russia - in connection with the current so-called nationalization of the elites and the amendments made to the Constitution to prohibit senior officials from holding foreign passports and residence permits. However, in the legislation for 14 years already there is a ban on second citizenship for prominent public civil servants.

Well, the third probable reason is that Tatiana Navka was forced by her husband. Ever since the wedding of Peskov with the ex-skater in 2015, the love of luxury, connections and various family assets, including American ones, have been periodically reported. In addition, the spouses regularly deny that their children from a previous marriage have French and British citizenship. Thus, they tried to partially close at least the "American" issue.

Most likely, Tatyana Navka filed an application for cancellation of the US green card in 2019, after the sale of an apartment in New York.

By the way, both New York apartments, according to the RealtyHop service, went to immigrants from East Asia: in 2008 - Korean traditional medicine doctor Injae Choe, in 2018 - a certain Chinese couple, Xiaomeng Zhang and Yunchen Lin (Xiaomeng Zhang , Yuncheng Lin). It is unlikely that these people are nominal owners: individuals with the same names did get married in New York in 2016, according to American online directories.

Thus, the discussion about what legal relations Navka is with the States has been completed: if anything, it was sent to the archives of the US Federal Tax Service.