Francke: companies will no longer be able to declare bribes as costs to pay less taxes

The Minister of Economy and Finance, Pedro Francke, He assured that, from the Government, they will seek to eliminate the figure that allows offending companies to deduct the payment of their bribes as if they were company costs, in order to pay less Income Tax (IR).

“An issue that seems to us in terms of collection, but it is important for Peru, is the issue of corruption. Personally, I am outraged that, having seen how millionaire bribes have been paid in our country, it turns out that these companies deduct these bribes as if they were company costs, and thanks to that they pay less IR ”, he explained.

During the presentation of the package of financial and tax reforms presented in conjunction with the SBS, National bank and call, the head of the MEF maintained that, in practice, the taxes that stop declaring end up being paid by the taxpayers.

“In the end, 30% of the bribes are paid by all Peruvians with the worst services”, he denounced.

In this sense, Francke Ballvé said that the initiative is in line with the recommendations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in the fight against financial evasion and avoidance.

“There is an OECD working group that has made some recommendations and we want to be very explicit that, as part of an anti-corruption package, bribes cannot be part of the costs that are deducted for the calculation of tax obligations” , he emphasized.

At this point, Minister Pedro Francke recalled that the Odebrecht company continues to be investigated for declaring this type of services, the existence of which was never verified.

“I am not an expert on corruption issues, but we have all talked about companies like Odebrecht, which paid for financial services that, in reality, it has not been verified that there have been certain figures of national politics who are now in preventive detention or constitutional accusations. We know that this is what happened ”, he concluded.