Tax specialist, Raymundo Volio, points out that the Costa Rican Tax Administration (TA) has been committing a set of abusive actions against taxpayers.
According to Raymundo Volio’s statement to ElMundo, the behavior of the tax administration is “voracious”, due to the emergence of a set of abusive actions against taxpayers which, instead of facilitating the quantity and quality of the collection, only alienates the obligated parties and drives them to evasive behavior.
The specialist pointed out that the most critical case is that of the Trámites Virtuales – TRAVI (Virtual Procedures) platform of the Ministry of Finance expected to support the virtual management of many tax and administrative procedures in this agency, but instead has become a “nightmare” for taxpayers.
Regarding the platform, he added: “there has been a considerable increase in cases where it is not attended with speed or efficiency, stagnating up to a year in a process that commonly takes at most a couple of months. They have also seen how some procedures are resolved without the expected mediation, simply to get rid of them, without the option of any recourse according to the Ministry of Finance, when the procedures before TRAVI must be as any other before the authority.”
This set of actions that has no limits to collect, but no efficient services, options to speed up processes and no increase in litigation to unravel the system, the specialist has called it “tax voracity”.
Clearly this platform is a transgression to taxpayers and tax regulations since, according to Article 18 bis of the Code of Tax Rules and Procedures, “taxpayers have the right to be informed and assisted by the Administration, which is not happening at the moment. There is also the right, by law, to obtain timely answers, as well as to be accompanied by a competent tax professional during the consultation process”.
In other words, Volio concluded, the taxpayer is left to his own devices.
Going forward, it is expected a better regulation from TA in its platform to improve the service provided to taxpayers.
Source: El Mundo 06/08/21
