The publication of the new Economic Crimes Law includes more than 200 new crimes. For David Ancelovici, in the tax area there will be three main effects of this regulation.
The new Economic Crimes Law implies the inclusion of more than 200 crimes that are currently contained in different legal bodies, maintaining the same penalties, but assigning them a differentiated qualification according to their seriousness in comparison with other crimes.
In relation to tax crimes, the law incorporates into this category some of those already existing in the Tax Code, without any change in the description of the criminal types. Specifically, there are three main effects of the publication of this law in this area.
In the first place, the incorporated tax crimes will be sanctioned as second category economic crimes. This means that a regime of more severe penalties is contemplated when they are considered economic crimes. That is, when the act is committed in a business context, in the exercise of an office, function or position in a company, or when they are committed for the economic or other benefit of a company. This is relevant because, if it is considered an economic crime, the regime created by this law for this type of crimes will apply to it, with its own modifying circumstances, rules to determine the penalty and rules on consequences associated to the crime.
Secondly, these offenses become part of the statute of criminal liability of the legal person. Therefore, not only the natural persons who have directly intervened in the punishable act will be prosecuted, but also the legal persons and the natural persons who occupy a position, function or position of power in a legal person, or who provide services to it by managing its affairs before third parties.
Finally, the current ownership of the criminal action in tax matters is maintained, so that its prosecution may only be initiated with the filing of a complaint or lawsuit by the director of the Internal Revenue Service, or by a lawsuit of the State Defense Council at the request of the former.
Among the criminal offenses included in this law are tax evasion obtained by a maliciously false or incomplete tax return, malicious omission of tax returns, the concerted facilitation of the means for the malicious inclusion of false information in the tax returns and the malicious use of invoices or other false documents, among others.
It is important to note that this law will not apply to criminal acts occurring in micro or small companies, which will only maintain their character as criminal acts in the context of the Tax Code, and not as an economic crime as such.
As can be seen, the new law on economic crimes promotes important changes in tax matters. In view of this, it is necessary that each company begins today to review its tax processes and to implement or update its risk prevention models.
