Forbes: Venezuela Tax Agency Closes Shell Office
“Shell has decided to challenge a US$130 million (euro104.8 million) claim for unpaid taxes in Venezuela, and the tax agency has said Shell will lose out if the case goes to court.”:
Posted Friday 12 August 2005
Associated Press
Venezuela’s tax agency has ordered a two-day closing of Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s office in the western city of Maracaibo amid a tax audit, the company said.
The company’s oil production in Venezuela has not been affected, as only around 150 employees at the Maracaibo office have been affected by the move, company spokeswoman Bettina Steinhold said.
“Our main production platform is still working,” she said, adding that Shell’s offices in the capital of Caracas were still open.
Shell has decided to challenge a US$130 million (euro104.8 million) claim for unpaid taxes in Venezuela, and the tax agency has said Shell will lose out if the case goes to court.
Shell was the first of 22 oil companies with operating contracts to pump oil that has received a bill for allegedly underpaying on taxes.
The Venezuelan tax agency says the original contracts for these firms set a preferential rate that violates the nation’s tax code, and is charging the difference back to 2001.
Venezuela has the largest conventional oil reserves outside the Middle East and is the world’s No. 5 oil exporters.
President Hugo Chavez’s government has been seeking to exert greater control over the industry, saying that in the past poor Venezuelans didn’t see enough benefit from oil proceeds.
The government has increased tax rates and is now signing joint-venture agreements to take majority stakes in oil fields that foreign firms until now have operated independently under contract.
This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
