MOSCOW. July 10 (Interfax) - The Russian Federal Tax Service has described U.S. Ambassador to Russia William Burns's address to the Higher Arbitration Court as an attempt to interfere in the outcome of the tax claim case against ZAO PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit.

The ambassador said in his address that the U.S. was closely following the tax debate in which PwC was involved in Russia, the Tax Service said in its documents forwarded to the Higher Arbitration Court. Burns said PwC clients in Russia represent about 50% of the Russian economy and asked the court's chairman to consider the case more thoroughly because PwC believes the essence of the case and legal arguments had not been properly examined during the previous proceedings.

"The conclusions made by both the judicial board and the U.S. ambassador can be disproved not only by all the documents present in the case but by simply reading the rulings handed down in the case," the Tax Service said.

This is "an attempt to interfere in the Russian Higher Arbitration Court's activity," it said.

It was reported earlier that the presidium of the Higher Arbitration Court had partially overturned rulings by three lower courts seeking to recover back taxes from ZAO PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit and sent the case back for new hearings.

The court upheld the rulings by the courts on the recovery of VAT for audit services.

The court's presidium overturned rulings by the Moscow District Arbitration Court, the Ninth Arbitration Appeals Court, and the Moscow District Federal Arbitration Court as regards charging PwC 128.2 million rubles in back profit taxes, 106.85 million rubles in back VAT, and fines and penalties amounting to 25.645 million rubles. The rest of the rulings remained standing.