Coca-Cola involved in Tax Evasion Scandal in Mexico

By Alberto Barranco | El Universal | May 11, 2011
[Note that the English translation is a Google translation]
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A formidable offensive was launched against the corporations "outsourcing" to construct simulation scenarios to avoid their tax obligations, the surprise is that the investigation of the Ministry of Finance are putting in sight to the subsidiary of The Coca Cola Company in Mexico

The worst part is that the assumption that the multinational aims to set up his own third party to simulate a relationship outside her contracting some of its officials, eager to skimp on a range of benefits including profit sharing.

According to a preliminary estimate of who placed the fly in his ear to the unit, the amount of presumed fraud by simulation could reach 14 billion dollars

The check to the largest producer of soft drinks on the planet came to termination of one of its exejecutivos, Angel Alvarado Agüero, who has spent four years in litigation with the company, having been dismissed unfairly ... even though it accuses of violating its Code Ethics.

The David Goliath throws stones served as Market Development Manager, working on various periods in Mexico, Central America and even in Atlanta, USA.

Her complaint, in a long drudgery that has touched the same Federal Conciliation Boards, labor courts, civil and even criminal, states that The Coca-Cola Export Corporation established outsourcing firm called Integrated Services Administration.

According to this, in the last 20 years, companies failing to have their tax payments by $ 80 million annually, which, multiplied, give the amount the complainant assumed.

In response to this, the general director of Crimes Prosecutors Research Deputy U.S. Attorney, Victor Manuel Martinez Contreras, authorities issued an official letter to the Central Manager of Planning and Programming of Federal Tax Audit, Rafael Jaime Cantu Reyes, to track tax payments made by three companies: The Coca-Cola Export Corporation, Integrated Management Services, and The Coca-Cola Compay. The office is dated November 8 last year.

The odd thing is that last April 27 as part of an annual meeting of shareholders, the company president, Muhtar Kent, not only failed to report the matter, but denied there was any investigation against the company in Mexico.

His only mention of the country was to make public an express invitation of President Felipe Calderón to Coca-Cola International to conduct a shareholder meeting in Mexico.

The manager had kept the same stage of silence last year, despite complaints of exejecutivo already in the courts. Had even more of a summons against the president of the firm to give testimony before national courts.

Agüero Alvarado's case does not appear in any reports of the multinational to its shareholders. The conflict has been escalating pianito yaws after receiving notice of his dismissal to the former official and require the signature of his resignation in exchange for not withdraw an international retirement plan that was right when he grew older he learned he had been hired by the outsourcing company, namely Integrated Services Management and Senior Management. The incident occurred on May 8, 2007.

In its letter to the Ministry of Finance, Alvarado Agüero accuses the three companies qualified tax fraud, tax fraud, tax evasion and contracts simulation acts and omissions in the worker-employer contributions to the detriment of the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social .

So far Coca-Cola has downplayed the allegations, saying simply that the former official was awarded the dismissal for violating its Code of Ethics, without stating the specific points, or respond point by point the accusations against it. The avalanche, for one, and came to the Treasury, with a bouquet that reaches at least 50 companies outourcing.

Balance Sheet

In effort to cover the well after the drowning child, or rather a miner buried, after the tragic episode of Pasta de Conchos, the government issued a new rule that the role would require a radical change in the conditions under which miners work coal extracted from underground.

No more verbal contracts, temporary contracts, no more, no more omissions in the Social Security registration, no more inhumane hours, no more zero hygiene and safety. I said.

However, according to the Center for Reflection and Action (CEREAL), the Ministry of Labor has not applied the rule to its logical conclusion, as the mines surveyed, despite the shortcomings thousand, are still open.

In fact, conducted an inspection in January at the mine "Lulu", part of the Minera Siderurgica de Coahuila, weeks later record a collapse that killed two workers: Daniel Vaquero and Juan Manuel Gomez.

The remedy, then, was worse than the disease, or if you prefer the standard lost power in the absence of officials.

Check to gas stations

Approved an initiative to additions to the Federal Criminal Code placed on the table of the House of Representatives by the legislature of New Alliance, Gerardo del Mazo, the gas vendors who defraud consumers with incomplete liters could go to jail. The penalty would be between four and six years.

According to the calculation of the legislature, reach five thousand eight thousand 243 of 200 stations operating in the country which mislead the public by giving 9.5% less than they are paying.

The haul, so help me God, would be 47 billion pesos a year!, Considering that in 2010 had a turnover of 439 thousand 118 million pesos between gasoline and diesel. The business of the millennium.

Peru yes ... but no

The condition imposed by the Senate to the Ministry of Finance to approve the negotiations that would open the door to a free trade agreement between Peru and Mexico, is that the unit might reopen dialogue with rural producers to discuss their objections.

Obsequious, the agency played a beat time to time scorer putting ears to the demands of the National Agricultural Council and the National Campesino Confederation to close the chapter in the run up to the visit of President Felipe Calderón the South American country, though it was argued that the intention was to win the race to the United States, who in 2012 opened his own commercial agreement with the Inca nation.

Thus lacked the head of the agency, Bruno Ferrari, is with the brake of the Senate, which made it safe the eulogy released by the Executive in favor of the agreement. The farce was the anthology.

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