Through Report No. 76-2021, SUNAT (Superintendencia Nacional de Administración Tributaria – National Superintendency of Tax Administration) issues an opinion as to whether services complementary to the freight transportation rendered in the primary customs zone in favor of international cargo carriers domiciled in the country qualify as exports of services.
1. Analysis
According to article 33 of the IGV (Impuesto General a las Ventas – General Sales Tax) Law, it establishes that the export of services is not subject to IGV, having been provided, in the fifth paragraph of said article, that the services will be considered exported when they concurrently comply with the requirements detailed therein.
Likewise, in accordance with the provisions of numeral 10 of the sixth paragraph of the aforementioned article 33, complementary services to the transportation of cargo from the country to abroad and vice versa, necessary for such transportation to be carried out, are also considered exports, provided that they are carried out in the primary customs zone and that they are rendered to international cargo carriers or to persons not domiciled in the country who have ownership of the cargo in accordance with the international transit customs documentation.
In this regard, it should be noted that in the case of international cargo carriers to whom complementary services may be rendered, it has not been provided that they must be non-domiciled in the country.
This being so, it can be affirmed that it is irrelevant, for the application of the VAT exemption provided by numeral 10 of the sixth paragraph of article 33 of the Law of VAT, whether the international freight transporter to whom such complementary services are rendered is domiciled in the country or not.
2. Conclusion
Therefore, services complementary to the freight transportation referred to in numeral 10 of the sixth paragraph of article 33 of the IGV Law, which are rendered in the primary customs zone in favor of international freight transporters domiciled in the country, qualify as exports.
Source: SUNAT 06/09/21
