Argentina Excludes Bunge From Cereals Register, Gazette Says

Bunge Ltd. (BG), Argentina’s second- biggest exporter, was excluded from the Cereals Register by the Argentine government amid a tax probe, the Official Gazette said today, without elaborating.

Being excluded will postpone Bunge’s readmission later, a tax agency official who asked not to be identified because of the agency’s communications policy, said in a telephone interview from Buenos Aires.

Bunge’s local subsidiary was suspended from the register Oct. 1, forcing the company to pay a tax rate of 25 percent to export grain, up from a previous 10 percent. Argentina’s tax agency said then it was investigating Bunge because of unpaid income taxes since 2006.

Susan Burns, a Bunge spokeswoman at company headquarters in White Plains, New York, didn’t reply to a call and an e-mail seeking comment.

Argentina’s tax agency, known as AFIP, last year said that four of the South American country’s 10 biggest exporters and cereals and soybean processors underpaid taxes. Cereal-producing companies use the register to expedite exporting and reduce export taxes.

Argentina is the world’s largest exporter of soy oil, the second-largest of corn and third of soybeans.

To contact the reporter on this story: Pablo Gonzalez in Buenos Aires at pgonzalez49@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Attwood at jattwood3@bloomberg.net