The SAT must carry out a cleanup of corporate registries to distinguish between inactive companies and those that remain economically active but are non-compliant with the tax authority, recommended Pedro Canabal.
The former central administrator at the SAT emphasized in an interview that the revenue potential of the 550,000 companies that, according to the SAT, do not pay taxes should be explored, which could amount to billions of pesos.
However, before launching a tax offensive against those firms, their operations must be analyzed, warned the also partner at Baker Tilly.
"Surely many companies are suspended or inactive due to reasons related to the running of their business. It is necessary to separate non-operational companies from economically active companies that are failing to pay," he explained.
He stated that it is essential to cross-reference information from the Federal Taxpayer Registry (RFC) with issued and received digital tax receipts (CFDI), active payrolls, tax returns, banking transactions, imports, and third-party withheld information.
Following this cleanup, he indicated, the Government could design a second phase focused on the assisted regularizationof non-compliant taxpayers.
"Options for self-correction must be provided, making them aware of the detected discrepancies, granting reasonable timeframes to rectify them, and facilitating payments as permitted by law," he added.
"We are not talking about tax waivers, but about inducing voluntary compliance through legal and technological tools," he reiterated.
Canabal explained that an intensive tax audit would only make sense after those two phases; subsequently, the construction of investigative files and the execution of collection actions would take place.
Related content
