Congress endangers Peru’s entry into the OECD

At the invitation of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to start the process of accession of Peru to the economic forum, the sights are set on all the norms and policies that are implemented by the Congress of the republic and the Executive Branch.

Nonetheless, Parliament would try to approve a constitutional reform that goes against the requirements requested by the OECD to the countries that aspire to be part of the institution made up of the 38 most powerful economies in the world.

And it is that, despite the fact that last Friday the 87 votes required by law were not reached, Congressman Alejandro Aguinaga of the Fuerza Popular parliamentary group has presented a motion for reconsideration that will be voted on next week.

Luis Alberto Durán, an expert lawyer in tax matters, explained to La República that said constitutional reform would limit access to banking secrecy to fight tax avoidance and evasion.

The error

According to the opinion, the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic and the Superintendence of Banking, Insurance and AFP (SBS) would be empowered to access banking and tax secrecy.

However, an error in the text would prevent Sunat from also having access to said information.

“By putting the word ‘only’, what they are doing is putting Sunat out of the DL 1434 and DL 1313. If that modification were made, Sunat would no longer be able to manage this exchange of information and, in practice, it is making the Peruvian State go back a time of opacity in tax matters”, the expert pointed out.

It is important to mention that DL 1434 and 1313 were issued precisely so that the call may have access to banking secrecy, since this was part of the commitments that Peru had with the OECD.

In this sense, the tax attorney indicated that this error could be corrected by presenting a substitute text where the word “only” is eliminated.

If the opinion is approved as it is, our access to the economic forum would be called into question, since a requirement to be a member of the OECD is to have access to banking secrecy for the fight against tax evasion and avoidance.

“The OECD sooner or later is going to pronounce itself. This has already happened elsewhere. an official from the OECD is going to come and say ‘be careful what you are doing’”, Duran added.

ask for adjustments

To avoid affecting Peru’s entry into the OECD, congresswoman Flor Pablo asked the president of the Constitution and Regulations Commission, Patricia Juárez, to take into account a substitute text in which it is determined that Sunat can also request , in a reasoned manner, the lifting of bank secrecy and the tax reserve.

The tax pressure gap

The OECD reported that in 2019, Peru’s tax collection as a percentage of GDP was 16.6%, below the average for Latin America and the Caribbean (22.9%) and also lower than the average for member countries of the conglomerate. economic (33.8%).

Due to this low tax pressure, the Executive presented the tax reform to Congress last year; However, the latter only approved some measures, preventing the collection from increasing by S / 12,000 million per year, according to MEF figures.

The word

Luis Durán, tax attorney

“By adding the word ‘only’, they are taking away from Sunat the possibility of fighting against tax avoidance and evasion and, in turn, they are going to damage the process of incorporating Peru into the OECD”.