On July 10, the State Council resolved a query by the Ministry of Finance regarding the payment of tax on financial movements in the country. It clarified that financial leasing contracts with third parties, as well as disbursements or payments to third parties for items such as payroll or services, among others, made with credit cards, will continue to be exempt from this tax. The query came after a controversy was caused by a drafting error in Law 1943 of 2018, which the Treasury believed could modify these exemptions.
The Law established modifications to the tax on financial movements, but did not refer to paragraphs 2 and 3 of Article 879 of the Tax Statute, where these exemptions were detailed in full. Instead, there was an ellipsis in their place, which caused confusion in the Ministry of Finance. The Council of State explained that the doubt was due to the fact that “the reform expressly included the entire content of the first paragraph without specifying whether or not the second and third paragraphs had been excluded.”
The Council thus concluded that the suspensive points do not eliminate the content, but on the contrary include them, since the substitution of the texts by the three points, in their opinion, “may be considered a calligraphic error in legislative technique ” They also pointed out that the background to the reform text clearly shows that the legislator intended to maintain these paragraphs, thus the exemptions will remain in force.