Verification Faculties of the Fiscal Authorities

As is well known, the tax authorities have powers to verify the effective compliance of taxpayers in their tax obligations, one of the main attributions it has is the so-called domiciliary visit, which, in broad terms, lies in the fact that the corresponding authority in reason of matter and territory is constituted in the taxpayer’s domicile, and requests the data, reports and/or documents related to compliance with tax obligations; however, as such visit represents an act of intrusion, the authority is compelled to fulfill the formalities that are regulated in the Fiscal Code of the Federation.

 

Among the features that must be met in every domiciliary visit outstand the following:

• The tax authority will be constituted at the address pointed out by the taxpayer for tax purposes and will request the presence of the legal representative, if this is not available, the authority must leave a summons so that the next day at a certain time, it waits; however, the law states that in the event that the taxpayer ignores the citation delivered, the diligence may be met with whoever is in the place visited.
• The authority will start with a visiting order, which must be written in a digital printed document, pointing out: the authority that issues the action, the issuing place, and date, the place or places where said visit will be made, the name of the people who will make the visit, it must be duly founded and motivated and contain the competent official’s handwritten signature; when the visit begins, the visitors must identify themselves with the person being served, requiring it to point out two witnesses, drawing up a detailed record of the facts or omissions that the visitors are aware of.
• For each action that the fiscal authority performs in the development of the domiciliary visit, it will have to draw up partial or complementary minutes where, in the same way, it will record the facts, omissions or specific circumstances they are aware of.
• The authority must issue a last partial record where it will state the facts; omissions or specific situations known during the entire visit procedure, but will not be until the issuance of the final record where the authority may make an assessment of them. For the issuance of the aforementioned final record, the same formalities as for visit must be followed. Once the final record has been issued, no more partial or complementary records may be issued.
• In the event that the tax authorities, when exercising the verification powers, are aware of facts or omissions that imply a breach to the fiscal provisions, they shall determine the omitted contributions through a resolution that shall be notified personally to the taxpayer.

It should be noted that the authority must conclude the domiciliary visit within a maximum period of twelve months starting from the notification made to the taxpayers about the start of verification powers, also has a maximum period of six months to issue a resolution where the omitted contributions are determined after the visit’s final record is issued.