The rule that allowed to resort to administrative litigation and thus be removed from the delinquent list was declared unconstitutional.
- The appeal had been filed in 2019 by ANEP.
- Taxpayers must pay, even if they litigate, in order to get off the delinquency list.
- The ruling has major implications for public procurement and administrative procedures with state entities.
Costa Rica’s Constitutional Court ruled in Decision No. 2025-017051, issued at 13:45 hours on June 4, 2025, in what appears to be a closely split outcome, to declare unconstitutional the fifth paragraph of Article 18 bis of the Tax Procedures and Standards Code. The action was filed by the National Association of Public Employees in 2019.
The paragraph challenged before the constitutional control was the following:
Article 18 bis – Management of Government Procedures. (…) In the case of delinquent taxpayers, names and amounts may be disclosed by the Ministry of Finance, provided the debts are final in administrative proceedings and have not been challenged in the contentious-administrative jurisdiction. If challenged, the taxpayer is obligated to inform the Tax Administration of such judicial action within three business days of filing. (…)
This provision, now struck down, had served as a final recourse to prevent companies from being barred from contracting with the State or renewing permits due to alleged delinquency. By initiating a court process, the taxpayer could suspend the practical effects of delinquency while the case was adjudicated.
The plaintiffs argued that the rule violated Articles 27 and 30 of the Constitution (right to petition public entities and access to public information), stating that requiring debts to be final and unchallenged in order to be disclosed infringed on the public’s right to information, and created an excessive shield extending beyond Article 24, which protects individual privacy. According to the plaintiffs, “paying taxes is a constitutional duty of all Costa Rican citizens, and therefore, providing such information to the Administration is part of that duty.”
For Francisco Villalobos, ICS partner and former Director of Taxation:
This ruling reinforces the Court’s view that tax information is of public interest, even though it involves private, financial elements that we believe deserve protection under the right to privacy—especially when it concerns the financial and tax affairs of individuals and businesses. What concerns us most is that we’ve seen delinquency arise from issues not caused by taxpayers themselves—fraudulent invoices, the effects of the COVID pandemic, or tax adjustments later ruled unlawful. Before this ruling, taxpayers at least had the opportunity to bring their case before a neutral third party (a judge) and continue operating. Now, the only option is to pay—and for many businesses, that’s not viable, especially considering the law requires a 110% guarantee of the debt amount to negotiate a payment plan. Access to information should not result in companies being paralyzed due to lack of permits or inability to contract with the State. Nor should tax collection be driven by pressure from a delinquency list. In my view, the entire article should have been repealed, not just the paragraph that offered a minimal safeguard for citizens.
What concerns us about this ruling is that we have seen delinquencies resulting from situations that did not depend on the taxpayer's improper actions, such as fraudulent invoice scams, the impact of the COVID pandemic, or adjustments made by the DGT on positions that were later declared illegal.
Prior to this ruling, taxpayers could at least raise the dispute to a neutral third party (judge) and continue to operate. Now all that is left is to pay, and for many companies, especially since the regulations require an 110% guarantee of the amount owed to make a payment arrangement, that will simply not be feasible.
It seems to us that the right to access to information cannot lead to the paralyzation of companies for not being able to obtain permits or not being able to contract with the State. Nor can we have a system in which collection is based on forcing payment based on a delinquency list. I believe that the article should have been completely eliminated, not only the only paragraph that proposed a kind of defense for the citizen".
We will provide further analysis once the full reasoning of the Constitutional Court is published.