Page Seven / La Paz
The delay or tax debt due to non-payment before the National Tax Service (SIN) amounted to 55,000 million bolivianos last year, reported the president of the entity, Mario Cazón.
“The total debt of the Tax Administration amounts to 55,000 million bolivianos, which are from processes that are even in legal proceedings, it is not a collectible portfolio,” said the executive.
SIN data included in a 2020 bill indicated that until 2019 the accumulated arrears amounted to 41,465 million bolivianos. The document was sent to the Legislature by the government in power and sought to modify Law 2492, of the Bolivian Tax Code.
The project mentioned that the debt registered a sustained increase during the previous 10 years, until it exceeded the tax collection reached in 2019 by 30%. For example, in 2010 the default was only 5,859 million bolivianos.
In August 2018, information from the Ministry of Economy revealed that nine companies headed the list of the largest debtors to the SIN. The most important, the company Bolivia China Oriente Petróleo y Gas, which owed more than 7,000 million bolivianos.
Also included were the defunct airlines Aerosur and Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano (LAB), the former with more than 4,000 million bolivianos and the second with a debt that exceeded 860 million bolivianos.
The lawyer Roberto Carlo Gil, from the Gómez y Asociados Law Firm, explained that any process in the judicial process due to taxes can take months or years due to the technical nature of the cases and the high procedural burden.
In La Paz there are five administrative courts to attend the processes that increased since 2019. Until that year, 95% of the cases were settled in the Tax Challenge Authority (AIT), but later people chose to go to the judicial route.
According to Carlo Gil, there are old processes that date back to the 80s or others in which the taxpayer died and that for the Tax Administration it is very difficult to collect.
He recalled that currently, for example, a well-known five-star hotel is on trial for tax debts and other credits, where the SIN, the Central Bank of Bolivia and the merchants are involved.
He explained that from the order of inspection, the hearing of the charge, the attention in the departmental rooms, challenges, appeals in cassation until sentencing can take years.
Collection processes
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Actions The president of the SIN, Mario Cazón, reported that as a result of the monitoring and application of coercive measures last year, National Taxes managed to recover 704,910,950 Bolivians.
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Tasks The SIN carries out various inspection actions to collect taxes. In 2021 the collection reached Bs 27,324.1 million.
