“The maneuver of these large supermarkets consisted of declare their meat sales as if they were a butcher shop, where this activity has an aliquot of 2.5%, instead of applying the 5% that corresponds to a hypermarket. That way, they evaded in 2021 around $1,000 millionwhat with the penalties and interest of the case now represent more than $1,500 million to be paid to the Province”, Girard pointed out in radio statements.
In addition, he stressed that “We still have to analyze the situation of the years 2018, 2019 and 2020, and what happened so far in 2022, so the evasion could reach up to $7,000 million, according to estimates. We are going to see if these large supermarkets conform to the adjustment that we notify, pay and with that the situation is resolved, or make another proposal, which would lead us to evaluate the possibility of criminal action.
It is worth clarifying that the Care Cuts program is in force, which sets the prices of seven popular cuts of meat. The program has a strong presence in hypermarkets. The program is valid until November 7.
Last week, the Commerce secretary it also fined supermarkets for non-compliance with stocks and signaling under the program Care prices.
The inspections of ARBA on the sector covered twelve large supermarket chains that have activity in Buenos Aires territory. In five of them verified that there were no irregularitieswhile in the remaining seven they detected evasion in meat sales operations.
From the difference between the aliquots of the butcher shops and the supermarkets, it appears that the evasion maneuver was carried out: the hypermarkets declared the sale of meat as if they were a butcher shop, when in reality it was an operation that should be taxed as a large-area establishment. Or they forced the sworn statement and applied that rate of 2.5% to total sales in the meat category, paying half of what corresponded to Gross Income.
Girard stressed that “in ARBA we have the mandate and support of the governor Axel Kicillof, which allows us to achieve concrete results in the fight against the evasion of the largest. That support is essential, because if not, no matter how much you want to move forward with these issues, there is resistance.”
“We must repair situations of fiscal injustice, starting with those who have the most, and work to formalize all economic activity. At the top, in the concentrated sectors, we audit very intensely, and at the bottom we use other tools, such as inclusion, tax culture and simplification, which allow us a different approach to informality”, assured the head of ARBA.
The inspection work of the Collection Agency on the food sector and large supermarket chains was deepened in the middle of this year, through joint operations with the Buenos Aires Ministry of Production, to control compliance with the program Prices Careverify the merchandise transfer documentation and detect possible tax evasion maneuvers.
The controls covered districts of the interior and the Buenos Aires metropolitan areaand included, among other actions, data crossing and information analysis to detect underreporting or triangulation of income, or the assignment of the tax base to activities with lower rates than the corresponding ones.
Source: Ambito
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