American Expatriate Costa Rica

Comptroller’s Report: Tax evasion increased

The Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic indicated that evasion of the General Sales Tax (IGV), now called Value Added Tax, increased by at least 2% in the period of 2012-2016, according to the study “Efficiencies of the actions implemented by the Ministry of Finance against tax evasion in the general sales tax” presented on December 14th.

Regarding the actions in extensive tax control, data shows that the number of delinquent taxpayers has increased in the period 2014-2017 by 28.0%, and as of December 2017, seven out of 10 registered taxpayers have some delinquent debt in the IGV,”

indicated the institution.

In addition, they established that in 2017 on average one out of every three registered taxpayers declared net tax equal to or less than zero.

The Office of the Comptroller established that both large and small taxpayers pay less and that this trend comes from 2011.

In 2017, for Large Taxpayers, the amount was ¢1.34 billion less than in 2011 and in massive terms ¢2.98 billion less than in 2011,”

said the Comptroller in the report.

In addition, the audits carried out by the Ministry of Finance decreased and this affected the cases sent to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which went from 2.13% in 2010 to 11.11% in 2017.

The amount of the delinquents shows a growth between the year 2014 and 2017 of 150.90%. In 2014 it was more than ¢ 28 thousand and for 2017 more than ¢71 thousand.

crhoy.com