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Venezuela slaps British oil giant BP with back-tax bill
AFP
CARACAS
Petroleumworld.com 03 25 06Venezuela on Friday ordered British oil giant BP and one of its consortiums to pay 61.39 million dollars in back taxes, the latest in a fiscal crackdown on mostly foreign energy companies.
A court earlier froze the accounts of Italian oil group Eni's local operations at the request of the tax authority Seniat, which is seeking 46.2 million dollars in unpaid taxes for the period 2001-2004.
The Seniat said BP Venezuela Holdings Limited had accumulated its tax debt of 61.39 million dollars during the same period.
The order also affects a BP affiliated consortium in Venezuela called Boqueron, it said.
The British company was given 15 days to pay or face fine increases of between 25 percent to 200 percent, the authority announced.
Earlier, the Seniat said a court had been asked to freeze the accounts of Eni because the foreign company "has not honored its commitments to pay."
Eni executives and tax officials have held several meetings in the past seven months during an audit of the company, whose local administrative offices were recently closed.
On Thursday the Seniat hit Sincor, an alliance between Total of France, Statoil of Norway and Venezuela's state-owned company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) with a back-tax bill of 697,674 dollars.
Since mid-2005, the government of leftist President Hugo Chavez has strictly applied a 2001 law that increases the tax rate for oil companies to 50 percent from 36 percent.
The Seniat is seeking back taxes owed by 22 oil companies, most of them foreign, who signed a contract in the 1990s with state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela for the exploration of the country's energy resources.
It estimates the companies owe the government a combined two billion dollars under the provisions of the law. Of that, the government already has recouped 54 million dollars.
- 03/24/2006 19:46 - AFPCopyright © 1994-2006 Agence France-Presse. All Rights Reserved.
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