By April 15, 2023, companies must pay workers and former workers the profit corresponding to 2022. However, there are companies that do not do this in the case of reporting a loss. The questions that then arise are: how long can companies go without paying benefits to their employees? How long can companies have negative equity and continue to operate?

There is an opinion that if a company has not paid a profit for five years, it automatically goes into liquidation or dissolution, because that would be an indication that it has not made a profit, so it would operate at a loss.

However, there is not and has never been a law indicating this. According to Pablo Guevara, a member of the consulting firm Andersen, “this is a myth.”

What existed was a series of regulations that talked about the liquidation and termination of the company, but which changed over time, none of them related to profits, but they related to losses. However, with the latest reform contained in the Law on Companies for Optimization and Business Impulse and for Encouraging Corporate Governance, which entered into force on March 15, some of them were put out of force.

By December 9, 2020, the law established:

Cause of liquidation:

Causes of decay:

On December 10, the reform of the Companies Act came into force, which somewhat changes the rules of the game. And so the reasons for the liquidation and dissolution were as follows:

Cause of liquidation:

Causes of decay:

Instead, from It entered into force on March 15 Law on commercial companies to optimize and encourage entrepreneurship and to encourage corporate governance. In this case, the changes are as follows:

Cause of dissolution:

According to Guevara, the latest reforms leave no greater control, no limits, on companies reporting losses on their assets.

The worker’s profit is part of the company’s net profit. The law mandates that before distributing the profit to the partners, 15% of that profit must be given to the workers. According to the law, the company’s workers receive 10% of their earnings, and the other 5% they receive for family obligations that each has.

Workers had to report their family obligations by last March 31. The report should have been about whether they were married or cohabiting, the birth of children. With this information, the employer can report the news to the ministry – via forms – and thus guarantee payment in the event of a profit.