A judge in Buenos Aires province has imposed an embargo of more than 150m pesos (US$52.4m) on French retailer Carrefour in favour of provincial tax authorities, according to the Dow Jones news agency.
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On Tuesday, local newspaper Infobae quoted the provincial judge as saying the three separate claims total 111m pesos and 59m pesos for Carrefour, as well as 16m pesos for supermarket subsidiary Norte. Carrefour spokesman Fabio Fabri said the company believes the total amount tops 150m pesos but hasn’t yet received official notification from the court.
Officials from the provincial court and Buenos Aires government weren’t immediately available for comment, the agency said.
According to widespread media reports, the provincial Undersecretariat for Public Revenue got the 30-day embargoes imposed on Carrefour for unpaid taxes. Fabri said the company has been a long-running dispute with the province over taxes and still has a pending appeal in provincial tax court that was filed in January. Carrefour is also thinking of appealing the embargo when it receives notification of the measure and has time to analyze it, Fabri said.
Carrefour pays more than 300m pesos in taxes a year, with 40% of that amount going to Buenos Aires province, according to Fabri, who insisted that the company has always been up to date with its tax requirements.
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By GlobalData“When you do an (embargo), it means you have some doubt about the solvency of the payer, or that the payer may escape before paying,” he said. “But in this case, Carrefour has been in this country for 20 years and has more than 2bn pesos (worth) of assets … Who can even have the faintest idea that Carrefour would not pay taxes?”
The national government has made cracking down on tax fraud one of its main priorities, and Buenos Aires province has been active on this front as well. Santiago Montoya, the provincial undersecretary for public revenue, sent letters to 135 brokerages in May asking for information on the trading activity of people recognized as overdue on their provincial taxes. He has also sought to force banks to open security deposit boxes held by high-income debtors.
Fabri said the province’s complaint against Carrefour is based on how the company operates its end-of-the-aisle marketing displays. The government says the retailer has avoided paying taxes on income from these marketing displays, while receiving merchandise as payment from providers seeking placement at the end of store aisles.
But Fabri said Carrefour has always paid taxes on these marketing displays and that the company receives discounts on merchandise because of its size and the volume of goods that moves through its stores. The retailer has more than 150 locations in Argentina.
