In the country, a store that is established in Colombia and sells toys from a multinational or another that dispatches sports shoes such as Nike, Adidas or Reebok, must pay 19% VAT at the time of sale.
(Read: Apple exceeds billing expectations but not in sales of the iPhone).
However, this tax does not apply if the products enter the country through electronic commerce platformslike Amazon, who do not assume it when the orders are less than 200 dollars.
Current regulations establish that these platforms do not have to pay VAT when they are products sold from the United States to Colombia. under the modality of postal traffic or urgent shipments whose value, not including delivery charges, is equal to or less than $200.
(Also: This is how companies in Colombia would have done in the third quarter).
For Colombian merchants this is unfair because it generates “unfair competition” for companies and they want the tax reform being discussed in Congress to change the rule.
For this reason, several unions, such as Fenalco, the Colombian Chamber of Clothing, Acopi and Acecolombia, expressed their concern to the Government since they consider that this benefit generates a fiscal gap. Also, it impacts industry and employment.
Along with this, he considers that facilitates technical smuggling and it allows triangulation, that is, products from Asian countries enter without VAT through the United States.
(See: Musk would have to pay $204 million for Twitter layoffs.)
As they do not pay taxes, the goods reach consumers with lower prices than local prices.
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