Costa Rica News – In order to cut down on tax evasion in these sectors it is going to be required that doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers, dentists, and other professional people to issue electronic invoices later this year. I understand the importance of this, however, I do believe that financial transparency should also be required of government entities like ICE, Conavi, MOPT, and while we are at it the Deputies in government. Why not make it required for large government monopolies as well, so there is a paper trail of the misappropriation of funds.
The Director General of Taxation, Carlos Vargas, reported that for this work in two areas: in a draft resolution containing the details of the implementation and a computer system to provide a free option for professionals.
The draft resolution was sent for consultation to all professional colleges. They did it for groups and ended last week. These schools have 10 days to submit comments.
Two professional consulted yesterday said they were studying the document and to submit comments. This was indicated Alexis Castillo, president of the College of Physicians, and Germán Guerra, executive director of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and Private.
The resolution states that “the liberal professions and corporations and limited liability individual enterprises used these to serve as liberal professionals, are required to produce proof of income in electronic form.”
It also notes that to issue these bills professionals must have a digital certificate, which is a card with a chip that allows a digital signature.
Electronic invoicing is a digital document. A person who buys the e-mail comes a detail like sending invoices ICE for phone bills. It comes along with a file that can be processed by Taxation and also print a voucher.
In the country and there are companies that offer the service and professionals who use them.
Creating electronic billing is one of the measures announced by the President of the Republic, Laura Chinchilla.
The purpose behind it is to have a tool to verify the income of professionals, which are important in determining the income tax (which applies to the difference between income and expenses).
In the same resolution, the General Directorate of Taxation said that this is one of the sectors with the highest rates of tax evasion.
So in a matter of a few months they are going to implement a computerized system to keep track of bills for professionals throughout the entire country. This is a massive undertaking that they have not even been able to do with the social security system in Costa Rica. It is not going to be fire-walled appropriately and personal information (including banking information) is going to be hacked. The Costa Rican government is going to either put in place a faulty system which is going to cause more problems than it fixes or the system will not be in place at all.
Border trail not thought through and huge mistake. Highway hole not thought through and huge mistake. This will be the next mistake on a list of many of not implemented or properly prepared project implementations.
Just because something might be a good idea it does not mean throw together something in hope that it works, it causes more problems than solutions.
