“In America, they would have closed much earlier”: Artemy Lebedev spoke about scandals involving the arrest of bloggers 05/15/2023, 14:15

Several social media stars have run into trouble with the law after a tax audit. The Investigative Committee opened proceedings against Elena Blinovska, Sasha Mitroshin, Lerchek (Valery Chekalin) and her husband Artem. Bloggers are accused of tax evasion and the damages amount to hundreds of millions of rubles.

Lebedev commented on high-profile scandals. According to the 48-year-old designer, the state began to examine this area of ​​activity more carefully. “You don’t have to be stupid. There is no hunting. The state is running out of money. We made a list where money was simply not noticed before. There are bloggers. There are guys who make a billion a year. Do they pay taxes? Let’s go, we’ll figure it out, ”explained Lebedev.

The son of TV presenter Tatyana Tolstaya believes that many bloggers did not care to put their financial affairs in order. Artemy assured that in the United States, online entrepreneurs are more severely punished for tax evasion.

“We went to one, the second, the third – they ran into a woman. She was told that she does not pay extra, and once – a hundred million. Question removed. We went to another, checked – you have a split, they just scattered it all to ten legal entities, so that each had no more than 150 million. All clear. It’s just a mess in every country. Did you think you could make it in America? They would just be planted much earlier. There is no ideology here. That’s purely an attitude – you can’t steal from your own. You have to answer that. This is for punishment,” said the designer.

Studio founder Artemy Lebedev expressed his belief that bloggers will prosper in the future. According to the designer, online platforms and social networks are rapidly gaining popularity.

“I was at the beginning. Now we have a rather downward trend in television, and the future is the blogosphere. Telegram, video blogs are the whole Russian culture that grew up on YouTube. It will not disappear. These people will not forget how to do what they do, they will simply transfer it to new platforms. Earlier you depended on some producers who took your show or didn’t air it, the number of channels and broadcasts were limited. And now that you are in free competition, you can shoot whatever you want. You have access to people and advertisers. Advertisers are very sensitive guys. They find everything themselves, and when someone is popular, they get rich,” Lebedev said on the YouTube show “Manuchi’s Empathy.”