According to the sector, what Lasso’s tax reform says is not fulfilled and even glosses and coercive are issued to collect pending obligations.
More than three months after the entry into force of the Organic Law for Economic Development (tax reform by Guillermo Lasso), the tourism sector complaint that the facilities for refinance debtsup to 48 months, with the IESS and SRI.
Nicolás Romero, representative of the Guayas Restaurant Association, denounced that they are concerned about the attitude of certain institutions that “do not seem to understand that there is a patient who has to recover and that there is also a sense of urgency.”
In the case of IESSthe situation is more serious -says the representative- because, not only that the debt refinancingbut, according to Romero, a few days ago the institution began to issue glosses and title credits for those debts.
“If the measures are not reversed, we will have to take legal action. From the Government we ask for a vision that is less tax-oriented and more in the direction of job creation”, he stated.
In addition, Romero recalled that, between 2020 and 2021, with the pandemic still hitting hard, taxes continued to be collected from the sector in advance.
“Some partners and affiliates who have requested a refund, but it does not materialize in more than 100 days,” he said.
Half of the lost employment has been recovered
André Obiol, president of the Hotel Federation of Ecuador, said that during the toughest moments of the pandemic, 140,000 formal jobs were lost in the tourism sector. To date, half has been recovered, that is, around 70,000 jobs.
After a 2020 loss of $2.5 billion in international tourism and $1 billion in domestic tourism, the recovery in 2021 was 30% of those lost sales.
“Now we are more relaxed with the pandemic, but we have the international threat of the Ukraine war. Operators and travel agencies have begun to receive cancellations from travelers who came from France, Italy, England, Spain to Ecuador”, assured Obiol.
In this context, the representative of the hoteliers considered that it is completely inconvenient that they are trying to collect a temporary wealth tax.
“There are hotels in the city of Quito that have to pay values of around $500,000 for this rate, when only certain months are coming to cover their costs and expenses,” he said.
In addition, he also regretted that the credits offered by President Lasso during the campaign have not materialized, or have only reached a few. The same happens with the refinancing with the CFN and the reduction of rates and municipal patents.
“The rate of income that we currently have does not generate enough to cover debts with suppliers, state entities, municipalities,” he concluded.
Letter to the IESS to comply with the Law
In a letter dated March 3, 2021, the Ministry of Tourism claims that the authorities of the IESS that, after several meetings and requests, it has not been possible to refinance the debts of the tourism sector.
“In this sense, I allow myself to insist on this request, because there are many tourism entrepreneurs at the national level, who due to their precarious economic situation, are waiting for this resolution to be able to refinance your debts to social security,” says the letter from the ministry that is addressed to the president of the Board of Directors of the IESS, Francisco Cepeda Pazmiño.
The letter emphasizes that, due to the time elapsed due to the failure to issue this resolution, the IESS through its different organs and systems has issued glosses and coercive notifications to tourism entrepreneurs.
If you don’t help the sectorSome estimates suggest that between 10% and 15% of businesses could go bankrupt. (JS)
