Alvaro Noboa

Noboa banana, faces embargo risk

The largest vendor from Álvaro Noboa's enterprices group was notified yesterday by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to pay in three days, USD 86 million for a coercive trial. We refer to Noboa Banana Exporter.

The company was audited in 2005 by the tax agency. It was found a glos by that time because USD 226 million were not included in their income and that generated a new value on the income tax that year.

The notification was scheduled for 10:30, but just materialize at noon. Only a street was separating the IRS offices with Noboa Banana, which works on the 7th floor of the Atlas building in the north of the city. Although the Superintendency Company is registered at El Oro and La Ría, in the south.

Johnny Amat, from IRS, was the responsible to notify the Self-assessed payment coercive trial. He came to the company and walked to an office, at the end of the corridor, that had been set by Banana Exporter for the process.

There were the media invited by Banana Exporter. Employees paralyzed their activities for a moment to learn what was happening and hear statements from the IRS official.

Amato asked for the company representative, Arturo Ycaza, but he was not there. The notification was received by Kleber Ortega, head of Banana Noboa Foreign Trade, who was accompanied by the group's legal director, Fernando Alarcón.

According to Amat, it must be given three notices and expect the company not to present resources first to run the collection.

Alarcon reiterated that the Internal Revenue was acting outside the law, because you can not start any coercive process while pending a ruling or administrative complaint. "Legally there is no embargo. I said that self determination is not enforceable and is under review".

The Collection Process began May 11 with a Second Tax Courtroom resolution, but Noboa's lawyers presented a motion for reversal that was canceled last Monday. Then, they presented an administrative claim that is still under analysis, but the IRS continued the next step which is the notification of the decision.

Alarcón intends to submit a cassation appeal today to avoid debt collection and to express that there are technical and legal errors in the audit. "They want to collect as USD 86 million. While not acting according to law anything is possible. They act outside the law," he said.

According to IRS records, in 2005, Noboa Banana canceled USD 259 218 as Income Revenue, but now it must pay $ 86 million, according to the SRI resolution.

According to Alarcón, adjustments are made by doing a pricing transfer and including a charter paying USD 1.10 per crate. "It's wrong. "

The economic group, consisting on 121 companies, is led by politician Alvaro Noboa. In 2008 they invoiced USD 795.6 billion, ranking place six in the 62 business empires in the country. In other words, it represented 3.8% of all the invoices made by the other groups: USD 21 095 billion in 2008.

So far, Noboa's companies keep 36 determination processes (audits) and coercive trials with the IRS. In addition, Noboa Banana ceased operations in the market since early this year. Now, export is performed by the signature Banana Continental (Banacont) that already, between January and February 2010, appears as the third largest exporter in the country. According to the Association of Banana Exporters of Ecuador (AEBE) records, in the first two months of this year they exported 4.3 million fruit crates. This represents the 9.08% of the total that the country sells to the international market.

Alarcón explained that this is a business strategy and it has nothing to do with the problem Noboa Banana is facing.