Law extending declaration of inactive companies approved

Last Friday, with impressive speed, the Executive and Legislative Branches agreed to pass a Law that postponed the obligation to file the asset declaration by inactive companies (which was due tomorrow, Tuesday), for three months.

Written by

Francisco Villalobos

Published on

14/03/2022
Blog
legal services costa rica

Last Friday, with impressive speed, the Executive and Legislative Branches agreed to pass a Law that postponed the obligation to file the asset declaration by inactive companies (which was due tomorrow, Tuesday), for three months.

Law 10160 SIMPLIFICATION OF TAX PROCEDURES FOR LEGAL PERSONS WITHOUT LUCRATIVE ACTIVITY was published in the Gazette of Friday, March 11, in Scope 54 of the Gazette, which modifies article 2 (a) of the Income Law.

The subsection in force until Friday, stated that taxpayers were: "All legally constituted legal entities, regardless of whether or not they carry out a lucrative activity, de facto partnerships, professional activity partnerships, State companies, collective entities without legal personality and joint venture accounts existing in the country." . And the one we wake up with today, Monday, is this: "(a) All legally constituted legal entities, regardless of whether or not they carry out a lucrative activity, de facto companies, professional activity companies, State companies, collective entities without legal personality and joint venture accounts in the country. Inactive companies are exempted from the application of the provisions of the preceding paragraph, which will be obliged to provide the Tax Administration only with summary information of the increases in their assets, liabilities and capital.. In this case, the informative declaration must be summarized and simple, in such a way as to minimize the cost of compliance. If there is no variation in the information provided, the annual tax return shall be deemed to have been made by confirming the existing content. In the case of non-domiciled entities that hold a legal identification number beginning in 3- 012, and do not carry out any activity in the country, they may request the National Registry to eliminate the legal identification number issued to them, without prejudice to the validity of any act or contract subscribed prior to the elimination of the referred identification number".

Three important things: first, the legislator corrects its mistake: an inactive company cannot be a taxpayer of a tax that requires business activity to accrue. It can, however, have obligations to provide information. Secondly, it obliges the DGT to ensure that the tax return is summarized and simple (not a "little piece" of the D 101 profit tax return) and that it should not be provided if there has been no change in the net worth situation. And third, that non-domiciled entities with a certificate registered in the Registry may request the elimination of the legal certificate. Curious way to fix what surely was the reason for this reform, but it was already obvious that a non-domiciled entity could not be a taxpayer of the tax on profits. The computer system still rules, not the law.

 Then, the legislators approved a transitory provision that gives three months from last Friday to file the declaration.

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