The US State Department communicates with the Syrian Foreign Ministry because of a “meat shop” in Damascus!
Despite the boycott and siege imposed by the United States on Syrian government, it was forced to communicate with the Syrian Foreign Ministry in order to find a shop that sells meat in the Syrian capital, Damascus.
The US State Department had contacted the Syrian Foreign Ministry, asking it to intervene to solve a case related to an US citizen of Syrian Jewish origin.
A Syrian Jew with US citizenship requested his country’s foreign intervention with the Syrian Foreign Ministry, and asked it to intervene in turn with the Syrian Ministry of Finance, regarding the volume of sales imposed by the tax authority on an illiterate meat shop owned by the Syrian-American Jewish citizen, that is located at the al Qasaa neighborhood in Damascus.
The Syrian Tax Information Authority imposed on the well-known shop a work volume of one billion Syrian pounds (282,885 USD), while the shop declares annual sales of only three million Syrian pounds (848 USD)!
The high value of the sales value was caused, according to the Tax Information Authority, that the aforementioned shop lies in its sales figures, as it is one of the most famous meat shops in Damascus, and it supplies meat to major hotels and restaurants in Damascus, especially the “Four Seasons” hotel.
The US authorities interfered with this issue, given its local nature, and Washington, which mediated with the Syrian Foreign Ministry to reduce the volume of sales registered against its Jewish citizen, couldn’t do the same with Other US citizens of non-Jewish descent.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry’s response to the US request is unknown, whether it promised to follow up the matter with the Syrian Ministry of Finance, or did it distance itself from the Issue.
The Syrian Tax Inquiry Authority imposed a large workload on many Syrian taxpayers in various types of economic activities, higher than the value declared by them, but none of the foreign ministries in the world; Including the US one, it didn’t interfere in the interest of any of them.
The shop must pay an amount that won’t exceed 20% of its sales volume according to the law, which means that the amount due from the “Umayyad” shop won’t exceed 200 million Syrian pounds, which is equivalent, according to the black-market price, about 56,577 US.
