The event focused on the need to create suitable conditions to attract investors, based on a clear legal system. This system needs to offer legal security to investors so that they can carry out their activities.
In order to achieve this, the tax code will be adapted to establish legal guidelines in the Latin American countries that require them, as well as updating existing guidelines.
The virtual forum was held based on the delay of the Panama Tax Procedural Code (Law 76 from 2019), which will not come into force until 1st January 2022.
The event concluded that the Coronavirus pandemic had accelerated the need to enforce some of the articles of the Tax Procedural Code. Consequently, the tax situation as a whole was reviewed to offer relief means to taxpayers and to permit default applications.
In this regard, it is recommended that the law may come into force beforehand, on 1st January 2021. This action may also be useful to attract foreign investment in the country.
For his part, Mario Pires recalled that before the Coronavirus pandemic was a global focal point, there were already predictions of a fall in the economy, which forecasted a contraction for both European and Latin American countries.
In light of said situation and with a fully active and accelerating fourth industrial revolution, Pires advised to strengthen the tax system in order to balance it out. The Kreston Iberaudit consultant recommended to take advantage of the potential improvements to the Tax Code Models already existing in Latin America, such as the OAS-IDB and the CIAT models
According to Pires, regulations and projects must be established anywhere in which there are no existing tax codes, but these must be correctly drafted so that they can be effectively applied without loopholes.
The Kreston Iberaudit consultant explained that a solid, balanced, and transparent Tax Procedural Code would create the perfect legal and secure guidelines that protected the rights and guarantees of taxpayers, something which he said is a necessity in order to attract investors looking to carry out economic activity.
