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Final Beneficiary Bill: new formal obligations for taxpayers
[/vc_column_text][us_separator][vc_column_text]Through the Tax Justice project which is currently under discussion in the National Congress,four billswhich are: 1) Tax Justice Law. 2) Constitutional Reform of Tax Justice. 3) Ratification of the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters (MAAC) and 4) Tax Beneficiary Law, the latter being the one where we will develop this article. The Tax Beneficiary Law has as its genesis the accession of Honduras to the Convention on Mutual Assistance in Tax Matters of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on July 11, 2022, which provides for the exchange of accounting, banking, tax, legal ownership and beneficial ownership information of commercial companies and/or legal structures; as well as international tax transparency standards. This bill aims to combat tax evasion and avoidance, prevent money laundering and corruption or financing of terrorism, counting on two major elements: 1) It will determine the new formal obligation to register in the Central of final beneficiaries 2) It will reform articles of the Commercial Code. Taxpayers who are subject to the scope indicated in article 3 of this draft regulation, will have the formal obligation to register in the Central of Final Beneficiaries where natural persons who directly or indirectly own, through any modality, ten percent (10%) or more of the assets of the legal entity and / or legal structures. Among the most important aspects to take into consideration in this bill is that the period of confidentiality of information increases to ten years, which contravenes the five years of prescription indicated by the Tax Code, also the fact that the percentage indicated in this law to register in the Central of Final Beneficiaries will be 10% for natural persons; This will generate an overload in administrative processes before the SAR, since we have examples from neighboring countries where they changed the percentage to 25% to avoid the administrative burden generated by the 10%. This update and declaration process would be absolutely mandatory, and failure to comply with it would subject taxpayers to sanctions. Therefore, it is recommended to pay attention to the publication of this new law and analyze whether it applies to them. For comprehensive advice on the subject, please contact the following email address: nfugon@lexincorp.com. *Legal Notice: The general information contained in this document is provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice on any of the topics discussed. You should not act or refrain from acting on the basis of any content included in this document without seeking legal or professional advice. All liability for any actions you take or refrain from taking based on any content in this communication is disclaimed. [/vc_column_text][us_separator][vc_column_text css_animation=""]Written by: Lic. Nicole Fugon[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
