Venezuela tax chief resigns after Chavez criticism

Reuters, 05.15.03, 9:37 AM ET CARACAS, Venezuela, May 15 (Reuters) - Venezuela's chief tax collector has resigned after President Hugo Chavez complained about tax evasion and corruption and ordered a shake-up in the state tax agency, officials said on Thursday. "Mr. Trino Alcides Diaz told me yesterday in a telephone conversation that he had presented his resignation," Jose Ricardo Sanguino, a pro-government National Assembly deputy who sits on the parliament's finance committee, told Reuters. Diaz, who led the National Customs and Tax Administration Service (SENIAT) for two and a half years, was replaced by Jose Vielma Mora, a retired military officer and Chavez ally who has been running Caracas' main international airport. Diaz's resignation followed a blistering attack against the tax agency by Chavez, a former paratrooper who earlier this year sacked 18,000 employees of the state oil company PDVSA who had participated in an opposition strike against him. In a television and radio broadcast Sunday, the populist president said levels of tax evasion remained intolerably high in the world's No. 5 oil exporter and he suggested many SENIAT officials were corrupt. "There are a lot of crooks in there," Chavez said. "If we have to shake up SENIAT like we did PDVSA, then we will; this is the country's money we are talking about," he added, saying he would personally supervise the probe. In April, the level of collected taxes slipped to 84 percent of the projected amount for the month, due to a sharp fall in customs revenues caused by existing tight foreign exchange controls. Customs revenues only amounted to around 47 percent of projected levels. Most of the country's private exporters and importers have halted operations because they say slow and inefficient allocation of dollars by the state currency control board is restricting their access to hard currency. Diaz was the fourth official to serve as head of SENIAT since Chavez took office in early 1999. Copyright 2003, Reuters News Service