Alvaro Noboa

Noboa requests the IRS to reconsider the amount

Drawing on figures of 2005 tax payments from other banana exporters, Álvaro Noboa yesterday replied to the Internal Revenue Service. “Companies like Chiquita, Dole, Del Monte that are larger than Bananera Noboa were charged US $250,000. I don’t think they should charge Bananera Noboa 360 times more taxes than its competitors”. Yesterday in a press conference from La Molinera, another of his companies in Guayaquil, Noboa said he expected to be charged the same amount.

One of the charts he submitted indicates that in 2005 Dole paid US $700,136.37 and Del Monte, US $11,748.13.

The IRS is carrying out legal proceedings against Bananera Noboa in order to collect US $90 million (capital plus interest) due to an allegedly incorrect tax assessment in 2004. According to the IRS, the initial debt was US $46 million.

“Just imagine, what business in Ecuador has that amount of money? That means it had to earn more than US $200 million.” Noboa insisted he was one of the largest taxpayers in the country: in 2007, he paid US $246,263. However, according to the same charts, that amount corresponds to him as an individual taxpayer, as does the US $165,926.36 he paid in 2004.

According to the former presidential candidate, Bananera Noboa’s assets are lower than US $5 million, and if the IRS insists that it has to pay, hundreds of people will lose their jobs. The company will be declared bankrupt and “forced to close”.

Noboa added that months ago his counselors submitted an appeal for a review, but “it has not been heard”.

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