Amendments to Article 69-B of the Federation’s Fiscal Code

Last April 24th, 2018, through the bulletin 5328, the Federal Deputies approved the amendments regarding the article 69-B of the Federation’s Fiscal Code, which considers the procedure that the Fiscal authority follows when figures out that a company has been issuing receipts without having the assets, personnel, infrastructure or, the direct or indirect, material capacity, to provide the services or produce, market or deliver the goods that cover such receipts, or they are described as “not located”, in this sense through such amendment it is intended to provide of greater certainty and legal safety to the procedure, regarding the periods and formalities to avoid wrongful interpretations and strengthen the Fiscal Authorities control.

In this context, the article originally commented on the following procedure; 1) When the Fiscal Authority detects that a taxpayer has been issuing receipts without having the assets, personnel, infrastructure or, the direct or indirect, material capacity, to provide the services or produce, market or deliver the goods that cover such receipts, or they are described as “not located”, will notify the start of a procedure through tributary mailbox, 2) Likewise, it will be notified through the Tax Administration Service website. 3) Finally, it will be notified, through the Official Journal of the Federation, 4) Starting from the last notification made, the taxpayer will have a 15 day period to state what it considers best for its rights and give the proofs it considers necessary. 5) After the previous period, the authority should value the proofs and arguments shown and finally 6) Will issue the resolution that in law proceeds.

However, from the procedure established above can be easily inferred that the legal precept establishes the procedure’s beginning through an “iuris tantum” presumption that the Fiscal Authority is going to carry out, in addition, there is a deadline to exhaust the hearing guarantee, afterward, it’s established the period the authority will have to value the proofs and arguments, and finally will issue the corresponding resolution, however, from an integral reading of the studied precept, it’s evident the fact that it doesn’t make clear the period to issue the resolution that in law proceeds, which clearly violates the taxpayers’ Legal Guarantee and Safety, because it grants to the authority freedom to issue and notify the resolution in time and terms it considers pertinent and at its sole discretion, situation that goes against the current Constitutional order, likewise, the aforementioned article doesn’t take into account the consequence for the case that the authority does not issue the resolution within a reasonable term, and let alone establishes if the aforementioned notification will be made through tributary mailbox or in person due to the importance and transcendence the notification has.

Derived from the above, and mainly to the several interpretations about it, the federal legislator considered through the studied amendment, add to the above procedure the following: 1) Grant a 5 days additional extension for taxpayers to offer the documents and information they consider relevant and 2) Considers a 50 days top deadline for the Fiscal Authority to issue the corresponding resolution through the tributary mailbox and otherwise the presumption regarding the tax receipts observed by the Authority will be voided.

Finally,  the amendment establishes the Authority obligation to publish every three months a list of the taxpayers who nullified the accusations, likewise, it will have to publish a list of the taxpayers that started a defense mean where the corresponding authority had left inadmissible the resolution that ended the procedure.