Peru wants Netflix, Uber, Spotify, Airbnb and Cabify to pay taxes starting in 2020

This article was written and published in Spanish and has been translated into English via Google Translate. Click here to read the original article.

Peru is looking for global companies such as Netflix, Uber, Spotify, Airbnb and Cabify to pay taxes for the sales they make on their digital platforms in the country starting in 2020, the head of the local tax collection entity, Claudia Suárez, recently stated.

The official said in an interview with Reuters that the measure could be approved by the country's President Martín Vizcarra through an emergency decree, so that this tax is collected from next year.

Claudia Suarez , head of the National Superintendence of Tax Administration (SUNAT), said:

"We are working with the MEF (Ministry of Economy and Finance). The MEF already has a proposal to tax digital services (...) taxi companies, deals, Netflix, everything that is streaming in general,"

When asked if they would include Amazon in the payment of the General Sales Tax, which amounts to 18%, Suarez said it was not yet defined, but he did mention Uber, Spotify, Airbnb, Cabify and Netflix.

Suárez said that the collection of this tax "will be via credit card retention" of the users when paying the digital service.

"It is considered that taxation (to these digital platforms) will generate 150 million soles (about $44 million) in revenue for next year."

On the other hand, Suárez said that SUNAT seeks to recover some 31,000 million soles ($9,000 million) from old tax debts of large companies, which are in administrative and judicial disputes.

Suárez explained:

"We have 97 processes with (the Spanish subsidiary) Telefónica and the amount under discussion is 7,500 million soles ($2,200 million), the majority is in the judiciary."

At the end of November, SUNAT reported that it charged about 255 million soles ($75 million) to Telefónica, after the Supreme Court gave them the reason after more than 10 years of litigation.

Suarez also said that the tax entity maintains controversies for some 1,000 million soles ($294 million) in debts with companies related to the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht, investigated for corruption in the country.

Of this amount, the debt related to the Gasoducto del Sur project in Peru, for some 800 million soles ($235 million), added the official. This project has been halted since 2017, when Odebrecht canceled it due to lack of funding.

This article was written and published in Spanish and has been translated into English via Google Translate. Click here to read the original article.

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