In February, the Tax Administration (SRI) identified 500 influential persons as the most important to apply tax supervision and now has 1,047 with economic activity called ‘Activities of creation, editing, production and dissemination of content on social networks and other related activities influential persons‘.

The entity, which holds targeted training for digital creators, indicated that it had “launched controls aimed at those influential persons “that they did not respect the presentation of their statements”.

How will SRI control more than 500 ‘influencers’ in Ecuador?

Therefore, the registry, according to the director of SRI, Francisco Briones, “continues to grow, because taxpayers are always growing and we are always regulating more and more taxpayers, so it is progressing. At the end of the year, we will provide a report on how this matter turned out.”

Both SRI and the private company undertook training campaigns to influential persons fulfill their tax obligations, and although there was a higher attendance in the beginning, interest has decreased to date, says Ricardo Vallejo, commercial director of accounting systems company iConta. on the line.

As stated by DRI, they continue to carry out communication campaigns for the regularization and correct presentation of the reports of this segment of taxpayers. “We have our SRI digital school which is on our YouTube channel SRI Ecuador, every month we post training modules there on the most relevant topics for taxation, from getting RUC to paying taxes, so it’s aimed at citizens, they just subscribe and receive notifications of new courses that exist,” said Briones.

Independently, Vallejo commented that following SRI’s announcement that it was working to determine liabilities using local and external information, there was agreement influential persons interested in training, the increase of which amounted to 25%; However, that was for some time and now the taxpayer has “forgotten” about the training.

At iConto, at least 150 content creators from Guayaquil, Quito, Cuenca, Ibarra and other cities came to the training, and one of the points they were most concerned about was changing their business to start charging.

“There are business people, politicians, athletes, influencers, television personalities, taxpayers who don’t pay what they should”

The SRI stated that it “initiated controls aimed at those influential persons “who did not comply with the presentation of their declarations in accordance with the values ​​that the tax administration has as a result of information from our databases, through persuasion strategies.”

According to Vallejo, there are many more influential persons that they don’t do the right thing, they don’t pay the bills, they still “remain very informal”.

On the other hand, SRI also indicated that the tax system a influential person that arrives in the country is the same that applies to any taxpayer who has an activity in the territory of Ecuador. “AND influential person who arrive in the country and receive income from an Ecuadorian source are taxed in Ecuador on their income received, and their services must apply the appropriate VAT rate as determined by law,” the subject stated.