Mexico’s Tax agency SAT asks Walmart to pay 500 million dollars in unpaid taxes.

February 19, 2020
Mexico’s Tax agency SAT asks WalMart to pay 500 million dollars in unpaid taxes.

The Tax Administration Service (SAT) requested Walmart pay 10,559 million pesos (US$527,950,000) for the sale of restaurant chain Vips to the Mexican company Alsea, for late taxes, fines, surcharges and actualization.

This is not the first time the Walton’s family, owners of the world’s biggest retailer, Walmart, are caught up in a legal predicament in Mexico. Reuters reported in 2016, that Walmart was sued for bribing the Mexican government and defrauding shareholders by concealing suspected bribery to help Walmart expand faster in Mexico, a U.S. judge said.

And in June of last year, Walmart had to pay $282 million to settle seven-year global corruption investigation for corruption practices in overseas stores in Mexico, Brazil, China and India, in violation of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

In Mexico, this recentc of tax evasion and tax relief were possible due to Barbary and under the pretext of not to “scare” investors. However, what caused the working class, small and medium size business to cover for it.

Thanks to the new collection initiative of President López Obrador’s Government, finally the laws of constitution are respected. The Mexican constitution mandates that everyone pay taxes regardless of their social status or class. Therefore, a very good sum of money has been recovered from the tax evaders in the past six years.

According to news reports, the Tax Administration Service (SAT) has requested the department store, WalMart México, to pay taxes for more than 10.5 billion pesos, derived from alleged differences in the payment of taxes for the purchase of the Vips restaurant division by Alsea, that was conducted in 2014. This amount includes the payment of taxes, actualization, surcharges and fines.

Wal-Mart confirmed that the SAT issued them a liquidation notice in which Wal-Mart Mexico and Central America require to pay due taxes in the amount of 10 thousand 559 million pesos (US$527,950,000).

For its part Walmart reported that “they are not creating a provision in this regard, since its lawyers and WalMart headquarters consider that they have the elements to support the validity of the operations carried out.” In other words, they do not want to pay taxes.

According to La Jornada; in 2014, “Alsea completed the purchase of Vips from Walmart de México for 8,200 million pesos. The transaction included the acquisition of 362 restaurants, of which 262 corresponded to the Vips brand, in addition to 90 of the El Portón brand and seven from Ragazzi, in addition to two operating under the heading La Finca. ”

Alsea, which also manages franchises of international chains such as Starbucks, Domino’s Pizza and Burger King, said in a statement sent to the Mexican Stock Exchange that it is evaluating its legal alternatives to challenge the tax agency SAT resolution.

This is not the first time the Walton’s family owners of walmart are caught up in a legal predicament. Reuters reporter in 2016, Walmart was sued for bribing the Mexican government and defrauding shareholders by concealing suspected bribery to help Walmart expand faster in Mexico, a U.S. judge said.

With information from La Jornada, and Reuters