Through Report No. 71 of 2021, SUNAT (Superintendencia Nacional de Aduanas y de Administración Tributaria – National Superintendency of Customs and Tax Administration) issues criteria regarding the issuance of electronic payment vouchers for the following transactions:
- Overnight deposits in the BCRP (Banco Central de Reserva del Perú – Central Reserve Bank of Peru).
- Purchase transactions with a commitment to repurchase securities of said bank and the Public Treasury.
- Purchase transactions with a commitment to repurchase in foreign currency are carried out by the BCRP.
1. Analysis
Payment vouchers
To develop the present consultations, it is important to refer to the RCP (Reglamento de Comprobantes de Pago – Payment Vouchers Regulation) without forgetting that Decree-Law No. 25632 states that all persons who transfer goods in property or use or provide services of any nature are obliged to issue payment vouchers, even when the transfer or the provision is not subject to taxes.
Article 1 of the RCP states that the payment voucher is a document proving the transfer of goods or the rendering of services, being obliged to issue them to the individuals or legal entities that carry out such operations.
Likewise, Article 2 of the aforementioned regulation mentions that payment vouchers are only considered payment vouchers and will have tax effects, provided that they comply with all the characteristics and minimum requirements established by the aforementioned regulation.
Payment vouchers include electronic invoices, sales slips, authorized documents, among others.
BCRP
According to the Organic Law of the BCRP, such an entity is a legal entity of public law whose purpose is to preserve the monetary stability of the nation and which belongs to a larger group of public sector entities.
The BCRP issued an opinion on the legal nature of the operations in question:
- Overnight deposits.-
- “They are an instrument of monetary regulation enabling financial institutions to make deposits in local and foreign currency, being these deposits made at the term of one day and remunerated at the rate set by the BCRP (…)”
- Purchase operations with a commitment to repurchase securities of the BCRP and the Public Treasury.-
- “They are an instrument of monetary regulation enabling the injection of liquidity, being the purchases of these securities carried out through auction or direct purchase (…)”
- Purchase operations with a commitment to repurchase in foreign currency.-
- Finally, “they are a monetary instrument to inject liquidity in foreign currency into the financial system and contribute to the normal fluidity of the operations of the banks (…)”
As can be seen, they all have in common that they are monetary regulation instruments affecting financial institutions and the BCRP uses them to preserve the country’s monetary stability.
2. Conclusion
Given the above, it is concluded that since these operations do not constitute services or transfer of goods but rather operations to preserve the monetary stability of the country, it is not appropriate for the BCRP to issue payment vouchers for them.
Source: SUNAT 97/09/21
