MOSCOW, July 8 (UPI) -- Yukos, the Russian oil giant, is awaiting the government's next move to collect a $3.4 billion tax bill.
Yukos missed the deadline for paying its 2000 taxes on Wednesday, saying paying the bill could mean bankruptcy.
The company has also received a demand for a similar amount for the 2001 tax year.
There was a glimmer of hope, however, in the offer by Yukos's jailed ex-boss and principal shareholder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, to sell his shares to meet the 2000 tax bill.
"I think that it radically changes the equation, and we will have to see how the government responds," Hugo Erikssen, Yukos' director of international information, told BBC radio on Thursday.
Yukos accounts for 4 percent of Russia's economy.
Yukos' 2000 tax bill is from a time when Russian authorities claimed Yukos misused tax havens to reduce its tax burden.
Yukos denies any wrongdoing, claiming instead that the practice was legal at the time.
