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Venezuela goes after more back oil taxes
Venezuela’s tax agency is preparing to claim back taxes from four more private oil companies and plans to expand that claim to all firms pumping crude under contract, including transnational giants Chevron Corp. and BP PLC.
Seven companies to date have been informed about the industry-wide tax audit, Jose Vielma Mora, head of the Seniat tax agency, told reporters, though he wouldn’t disclose which four companies would be targeted next.
Seniat has already sent tax claims totaling US$240 million to Italian oil company ENI SpA, Royal Dutch Shell PLC, and the U.S. firm Harvest Natural Resources Inc. All three have contested the bills, though Harvest has paid a part of the amount owed, Mora said. 22 private firms hold oil agreements U.S.-based Chevron Corp., France’s Total and London-based BP are among the 22 private oil firms that hold oil pumping agreements in Venezuela. The Seniat has said that those companies together owe a total of US$3 billion in unpaid taxes that it intends to collect.
Venezuela’s government in April hiked taxes on operating agreements to 50 percent from 34 percent, saying the lower rate set when the contracts were awarded in the 1990s violated national laws. It has retroactively applied the new rate to 2001 and is seeking to collect the difference.
Earlier this year, authorities seized tax-related documents from the Maracaibo offices of Chevron. The Seniat has also ordered a court injunction against Shell, Europe’s second-largest oil company, on US$130 million in assets as collateral for taxes it says the firm owes.
“We’ve led a very accommodating tax campaign with oil companies,” Vielma said. “If we haven’t pursued all companies before, it is because we didn’t have the time to do it.” Companies can pay over time The tax chief noted that companies will have the opportunity to pay what they owe with payment plans over a period of time.
The government has also required all operating contracts to be switched to state-controlled joint ventures by the end of the year in which the state oil company PDVSA may take as much as an 80 percent stake.
But it is requiring companies to pay their tax claims before making the change.
Mora said the Seniat could go as far as shutting oil pumping operations if they refuse to pay taxes. The government also has threatened to reclaim oil fields from companies that refuse to switch to joint ventures.
—The Associated Press
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