Due to the recent press versions about alleged property taxes not paid by Cerrejón, the company makes the following clarifications:
Albania, La Guajira
25 January 2010
CERREJÓN has always paid, to the different municipalities of La Guajira, the taxes that correspond according to the Law.
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The company is not obliged to pay the property tax corresponding to the railroad line and to the public road that go to Puerto Bolívar, because they are goods that were built over uncultivated lands that belong to the Nation. Those lands were reserved by Incora since 1981 in favor of Carbocol S.A. for the construction of the infrastructure necessary for the transportation and exportation of coal. Nowadays, the reserve is managed by Ingeominas.
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Truly, neither the railroad nor the public roads are immovable goods on which CERREJÓN exercises ownership or possession that allow it to claim any indemnity or compensation when divesting from them. Those goods shall revert to the Nation on a free basis upon termination of the mining contract.
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Under the same rationale, and on a cadastral basis, it is only possible to register the ownership or possession of immovable goods on head of their owners or holders. Accordingly, the strip of uncultivated land on which the railroad and the public road were built was registered by the cadastral authorities in the name of the Nation. All other rights on the infrastructure that are not part of the immovable goods are foreign to the cadastral registration.
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Due to the foregoing, the property tax that only burdens the ownership or possession of immovable goods is not accrued on the railroad and public road built in the uncultivated lands that are the property of the Nation. It is pertinent to annotate that the public road, which was built with Cerrejón funds, has been placed to use the public without any costs for the Nation and that Cerrejón continues to maintain a large portion of it with its own funds.
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Therefore, it is not legally possible to pretend the collection of a property tax to which Cerrejón is not obliged and, even less, to make a cadastral registration with retroactive effects (17 years back), with the pretension of a, likewise, retroactive collection for such period. The law expressly prohibits retroactivity in public administration actions. And the Constitution prohibits the collection of retroactive tributes.
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As customarily, Cerrejón will continue to pay, on a timely basis, the taxes that correspond to it by law, but, likewise, before actions that violate its rights, it will use any and all legal mechanisms available to it in defense thereof.
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