This Tuesday, January the 23th, 2024, the government announced the details of the “Tax Obligations Compliance Project”, which seeks to raise 1.5% of GDP through 7 main items:

i) Modernization of the tax administration and the Tax and Customs Courts.

That tax administrations advance periodically in modernization processes that allow the better use of technologies in their inspection procedures: modification for the lifting of banking secrecy or notification by email in the actions of authorities.

ii) Control of informality;
Combat this large-scale practice linked to organized crime. To achieve this, measures will be promoted such as modifying the crime that punishes clandestine trade or forcing banks and financial institutions to alert when a taxpayer receives more than 50 transactions from different accounts in a month.

iii) Tax crimes;

The importance of tax morale is highlighted and substantial collaboration will be created to disrupt criminal tax structures, the anonymous whistleblower will be incorporated based on success in other jurisdictions and penalties will be increased for those who provide or use false tax documents, among other measures.

iv) Aggressive tax planning;
Taxpayers cannot illegitimately alter their tax burden, with schemes designed to avoid or reduce their tax obligations or transfer benefits to territories with lower taxation. Improvement of the general anti-avoidance rule, better application and interaction with the special anti-avoidance rules, the control rules on international taxation will be updated and the one that regulates the taxation of the SII and business reorganizations will be modernized.

v) New powers for the Taxpayer Ombudsman’s Office;
Accompaniment to taxpayers and also educate on compliance with tax obligations. Within its range of action, represent taxpayers before the Treasury or Customs; access to tax information to fulfill their functions.

vi) Regularization of tax obligations;
Its purpose is to enable taxpayers to settle their tax debts, the calculation of the interest rate will be modified and the conditions for signing payment agreements will be made more flexible. Three transitional measures are also proposed: repatriating capital, early termination of trials after payment of debt and the possibility of accessing payment agreements with remission of interest and fines.

vii) Institutional strengthening and probity.

The tax administration will be strengthened, rules on mobility and retention of Customs, Treasury, SII and Taxpayer Ombudsman personnel will be incorporated, and the officials in charge will be required to submit to a high degree of probity.