For the first time, the country's Courts of Justice sentenced six people to 10 years in prison for tax fraud against the Public Treasury, a sentence that corresponds to the case of a clothing importing company that defrauded over $575,000.
Carlos Vargas, general director of Taxation, indicated that during 16 years the taxpayer who was condemned used all the procedural guarantees until the last instance.
In this scenario of economic crisis, falling tax revenues and the need to finance recovery programs, in Guatemala and Costa Rica it is already proposed to increase current taxes and create new ones.
Guatemalan authorities are already beginning to discuss the fiscal policy they will apply in 2021, when the economy will have to face the effects of the economic crisis generated by the covid-19 outbreak.
In order to update the Intergovernmental Agreement for the Effectiveness of the Tax Compliance Law on Foreign Accounts, signed by both parties in 2013, the governments of both countries signed a complementary agreement to FATCA.
According to the Ministry of Finance of Costa Rica, with the subscription of the complementary agreement, the legal basis of the FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) will be updated with the provisions of the Agreement with the Government of the United States of America for the exchange of information on tax matters, which will enter into force next September.
Facing the proposal of the authorities to abolish the banking secrecy in the country, businessmen of the industrial sector are opposed, because they argue that there are already legal procedures in the country to do it through a judge.
At a press conference on February 11, Finance Minister Rodrigo Chaves defended the proposal to access sensitive information from taxpayers and said that by lifting banking secrecy they were seeking to tackle tax evasion.
In Costa Rica, the Legislative Assembly approved in first debate a bill to avoid fines for errors in the declaration of the shareholders' registry for two months.
In its first debate, the file 21,758 Law of Moratorium for the Application of Sanctions corresponding to the ordinary declaration of the 2019 period, related to the transparency and final beneficiaries’ registry, provided for in the Law to Improve the Fight against Tax Fraud, was approved. The initiative gives an extension for shareholders of corporations to submit their lists, before applying sanctions, reported the Legislative Assembly.
Arguing that the country "fulfils all its commitments in terms of fiscal cooperation", the European Union decided to remove it from its list of nations and territories considered as non-cooperative.
Albania, Costa Rica, Mauritius, Serbia and Switzerland have implemented, ahead of schedule, all the reforms necessary to comply with the principles of good tax governance of the European Union (EU).
Businessmen ask for an immediate extension in the application of any fines, as many representatives of companies have not yet managed their digital signature and at this time, there is no capacity installed in the authorized posts.
As of September 1, approximately 370,000 legal entities will be required to comply with the Registry of Transparency and Final Beneficiaries, with the legal documents ending in 0 and 1 being the ones that must do so first.
However, as of September 1, 2019, legal entities who prefer it, regardless of the last digit of their identity card, may make their declaration and send it in advance.
The Agreement with the Republic of Italy for the exchange of information on tax matters entered into force on June 17th.
The signing of this bilateral agreement took place in May 2016 and establishes the provisions through which the exchange of tax information between both jurisdictions will be regulated, while seeking to strengthen the international fight against tax evasion.
Since April 21, the agreement that avoids double taxation and mitigates its effects has been in force, as well as helping to eliminate barriers to trade and prevent tax evasion.
On March 21, Law 9644 was published in La Gaceta, corresponding to the agreement between the Republic of Costa Rica and the United Mexican States, which avoids the double taxation of income and wealth taxes.
With the new agreement published in the official newspaper La Gaceta, double taxation is avoided and its effects mitigated, as well as helping to eliminate barriers to trade and prevent tax evasion.
On March 21, Law 9644 was published in La Gaceta, corresponding to the agreement between the Republic of Costa Rica and the United Mexican States, which avoids the double taxation of income and wealth taxes.
Because of doubts that have arisen in the business sector, in Costa Rica it was reported that the start of shareholder registration was postponed six months and will enter into force on September 1 of this year.
The aim of this process is to facilitate compliance with the obligation that companies must inform the Treasury on the composition of its share capital, as well as the identification of final beneficiaries, under the provisions of the Law to Improve the Fight against Tax Fraud, a statement from the Central Bank of Costa Rica (BCCR).
In order to facilitate the formalization of more companies, in Costa Rica the private sector has proposed to the government the implementation of a fiscal amnesty exclusively for the informal sector.
The Costa Rican Union of Chambers and Associations of Private Enterprise (Uccaep), proposes that the tax amnesty be carried out avoiding retroactivity and reprisals, and that it has a short period of duration.
Although the Central Bank has not yet defined the date on which companies must present information, the new regulation on transparency and final beneficiaries registration has already been published.
The regulation was published at the end of April in the official newspaper La Gaceta, and details which entities are obliged to provide information regarding the substantive and final beneficiary interests, established in the Law to Improve the Fight Against Tax Fraud.
The predictive model designed with data mining techniques used by the Ministry of Finance in Costa Rica has detected payments to third parties totalling more than $31 million.
By cross matching information from the 132 databases available to the Ministry of Finance, the Tax Intelligence Office is trying to predict which companies are more likely to evadetaxpayments, depending on their historical behavior measured through transactions, tax returns and other data. By linking together all of the information, they are identifying patterns of behavior similar to those of other companies that have evaded taxes in the past.
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