Informal formalities: tax havens and taxation

Guatemala is a world-class case study in taxpayer resistance and its relationship to the state. Now, on the 500th anniversary of the Spanish invasion, with historical forums being held everywhere, it is worth returning to the complex issue of taxation. The early conquest companies were devoted to plunder and Tax.

As the author said best seller Thomas Piketty, on the topic of the world, the act of taxation has a lot of ideological content. After publishing a long paper entitled “The Dynamic History of Wealth and Income” Capital in the 21st Centurythe expert is working on another paper titled Capital and ideology. This is based on a lot of data about world inequality..

The current discussion in Guatemala intensified today due to three controversial press conferences held by the current head of the National Tax Service, Marco Livio Díaz, and the general commander of the organizational chart currently presented by the National Tax Service.

The main characters are: the new tax chief, the new audit chief, and now the new customs chief, who are Erick Echeverría, Oscar Hernandez, and Orlando Curtidor.

Sharp language from elPelex on Sunday EP Survey This leaves the question of whether the hasty appointment of Kutido is due to the possible return of leaders of the old corrupt structure. As is known, the La Linea I and La Linea II cases came to light due to corruption in the return of tax credits to exporters, customs procedures and other similar issues.

The controversial press conference revolved around three investigations conducted by the SAT: the first was on the now famous vacation accommodation Airbnb. The second was two studies on the so-called tax expenditures., related to privileges and exemptions related to non-payment of income tax and VAT. The third, incidentally, is more recent and concerns the suspicious cancellation of invoices issued to final consumers by food supply establishments, petrol stations and other establishments known for small purchases (less than QR2,500).

The tone of the second meeting was full of controversy, since this topic is a very dry and legalistic one, and the journalists have little specific knowledge, which gives rise to superficial speculations and all kinds of suspicions. One of the studies, which, by the way, is not easy to find anywhere, shows a very close correlation between the dynamics of remittances and mass consumption, despite the fact that the State Administration of Taxation has a huge portal and a large number of well-paid civil servants. This is a topic that we constantly discuss in our columns and various surveys, it is almost a self-evident truth. Now, an unfortunate comment in the explanation states that “unfortunately, a large part of this expenditure is carried out in the market and in the informal economy.” It is believed that the so-called informal economy sector, You don’t pay taxes, but you have to pay taxes Make it official.

One of the biggest controversies and ideological taboos on the environment has emerged, recited and hummed like dogma: “We must broaden the tax base.”. This is the view that the most prominent representatives of the business world tend to affirm, meaning large real estate magnates, agricultural exporters, bankers and others.

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This close dialectic between large companies and their subsidiaries is well worth studying, at least in the SAT or in academia, if we want to promote high-quality tax dialogue in contemporary Guatemala. Shareholding Companies headquartered in Panama, Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, etc. We will see here that although our noble corporate sector is classified as formal, This is done with the most astonishing informality, anonymity and opacity.

The problem with this formal/informal dialectic is that it is not uncommon for Pandora o Panama Papers, This exposed the shenanigans of Panamanian law firms, such as the infamous Mossack Fonseca case that brought life to countless Chapinian agricultural product export mall companies.

The strange thing about all this is that in such a paradisiacal setting, Treasure Island and the most elegant German or North American conglomerates coexist with the operations of politicians hated by the West, such as Vladimir Putin, or the worst African and Asian dictators. Suspicion also extends to Latin American drug kingpins and even the most brutal terrorist organizations.

In Guatemala, it is normal for a notary to create a company maritimeTo justify them, Article 5 of the Political Constitution states: Everyone has the right to do what is not prohibited by law. This has proven to be a very common claim in business allegations, where excesses and massive corruption are alleged, such as those revealed by CICIG since April 2015 and the numerous cardboard companies created not only to defraud the state treasury but also to line their own pockets through corruption.

Of course, in discussions related to the Organic Law of the State Taxation Administration or the reform of the tax code, when one looks closely, one realizes that the guardians of the established order are responsible for destroying any small prohibition related to obstacles to setting up a company. Shareholding and other collateral in tax havens from Panama to Switzerland, via the Cayman Islands and Andorra.

What is interesting here is that if we try to clean up the gray area of ​​market taxation, where there are well-known chiefs and rulers, but the mass economy is developed, there are five hundred years of plunder and diversified taxation – this road has always been the gathering base of large-scale Chapin industrial and commercial oligarchs. All the dialectical relations between self-proclaimed enterprises and enterprises Overseas Holdings It is a taboo that is rarely debated in the perfumed forums of five-star hotels and in the guilds of accountants and lawyers devoted to their lucrative business. Tax defense.