The provision of services to the State by individual professionals is a recurrent economic activity for Guatemalan professionals. However, resolution SAT-DSI-838-2019 of the Superintendence of Tax Administration, requires those who wish to provide this service to register in such regime as an essential requirement for their hiring.
Those obliged under the new resolution will be those university professionals covered by the Compulsory Professional Membership Law currently in force.
According to the same Superintendence of Tax Administration, the scope of the Online Electronic Invoice includes the issuance, transmission, certification and conservation by electronic means of invoices, credit and debit notes, receipts and other documents authorized by said entity.
What is certain is that, more than a limiting factor, this new regulation includes a benefit for professionals, promoting the digitalization of tax procedures for professionals.
In that sense, even though the obligation only extends to those who wish to provide services to the State under the regulation of the Law of State Contracting, the increase in the use of these electronic systems is an incentive for modernization of the formal economy in Guatemala.
This measure is an addition to the joint efforts of various sectors to boost the fastest growing economy in the Central American region. Likewise, from the regulatory and tax standpoint, the measure is an effort to increase collection and make transparent the administrative procedures to which taxpayers submit.
Although for the latter the implementation of the system may generate an initial cost, the retribution received in tax collection and formalization of contracting by the State has a considerable value that professionals cannot ignore.
Associate
García & Bodán
Guatemala