Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Chavez goes after Rice's Chevron.


Chevron is the former company of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

-Am

Venezuela moves against Shell, Chevron in tax probe
Fri Jul 15, 2005 1:40 AM BST

By Pascal Fletcher and Matthew Robinson
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela on Thursday ordered international oil major Shell (RD.AS: Quote, Profile, Research)(SHEL.L: Quote, Profile, Research) to pay nearly $131 million (74.5 million pounds) in back taxes, and also confiscated financial data from U.S.-based Chevron Corp. (CVX.N: Quote, Profile, Research) in a tax crackdown.

The actions announced by national tax authority SENIAT against the two foreign oil companies formed part of a campaign by left-wing President Hugo Chavez's government to tighten control over Venezuela's strategic oil sector.

Both Shell and Chevron said they were cooperating with SENIAT in the tax probe but Shell said it had "paid all taxes mandated by the law".

"Anglo-Dutch Shell was given notification that it should pay $281 billion bolivars (74.5 million pounds) relating to income tax dues that were not paid in the period 2001-2004," SENIAT said in a statement.

The statement added that if Shell complied with the payment demand within the 15 days established by law, it would only have to pay 10 percent in interest and fines. If it failed to do this, the penalties could increase to up to 250 percent.

SENIAT said its inspectors also temporarily confiscated data from Chevron Corp. from its offices in the western oil city of Maracaibo because the U.S. company had failed to produce it on request. The tax authority was seeking financial and accounting information from the company.

"We intervened in their administrative section to take information from their systems ... because they weren't giving it to us," Jose Cedillo, SENIAT manager for special tax contributors, told Reuters by telephone.

Cedillo said the tax authority would advise two more foreign oil companies next week that they owed back taxes but he declined to identify them or give details.

"The investigation is moving forward," he added.

Cedillo said SENIAT inspectors had requested the presence of a state prosecutor to gain entry to the Chevron offices and they downloaded data from the company's computers.

The intervention only affected Chevron's administrative offices and not its oil operations, Cedillo added. Continued ...

© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.


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