Chavez asks foreign oil companies to pay up taxes or leave
Caracas: President Hugo Chavez has said that foreign oil companies operating in Venezuela must pay taxes they owed, or else leave the country.

"They have to pay," Chavez said during his regular television and radio show, adding: "If they don't, they must leave."

According to Venezuelan law, oil companies must pay a 30 percent royalty, but firms producing heavy crude - which is expensive to produce - were allowed to pay one percent royalty until last year, when the government raised it to 16 percent.

State officials allege that some of the companies declared losses to avoid paying income tax.

According to Chavez, many private oil companies had been evading taxes for years and must be charged retroactively with interest on any debts.

Chavez's warning came a day after National Assembly president Nicolas Maduro said lawmakers would investigate international oil companies accused of evading taxes and other charges.

Maduro, a pro-government lawmaker, was quoted by the state-run Bolivian News Agency as saying lawmakers expected to find evidence of tax evasion, royalty debts, production over the limit set by the government and irreversible damage to some wells.

He said investigators would question top officials of the state-run oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, who negotiated agreements with foreign companies after Venezuela allowed them to enter its oil industry in the mid 1990s.

During that time, 32 operating agreements were signed with companies including ChevronTexaco, British Petroleum, Total, Petrobras, Repsol YPF, Royal Dutch Shell and the China National Petroleum Corp.

Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez estimated last month that many of these companies had evaded taxes totalling $ 2 billion.
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