Legal updates you should be aware of as we start 2022

Jan 10, 2022 | English Blog

Posted by: Norma Jaen | Junior Associate at Alvarado y Asociados

At the beginning of the year, commercial companies have to comply with a series of obligations and there are important legal updates that you should be aware of as we start 2022:

1- Update of the Tax Stamp rate:

In compliance with the provisions of the Tax Law, the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit have published the Ministerial Agreement No. 011-2021, this updating the amounts to be paid for the Tax on Fiscal Stamps, which are applicable from the January 1, 2022 to December 31, 2022.

For this year, the rates of this tax have increased by 6.41% compared to 2021, which implies an increase in the value to pay for obtaining immigration documents, attestations of trademark and patent registrations, tax solvencies, and certifications of the Mercantile Public Registry or the Registry of the Civil Status of Persons and/or any document that must be printed on sealed paper.

2- Commercialization of Electric Power

As of last November 2021, the commercialization of electrical energy in our country is regulated in Law No. 1094, Law of reforms and additions to Law No. 272 of the Electricity Industry Law and its Reforms, by this mean it is established that to carry out export and import activities related to electric power, entities must have a license granted by the Ministry of Energy and Mines and that this may have a validity period of up to 10 years, extendable.

In the same sense, currently the import and export of electrical power is exempt from all types of charges, taxes and / or special contributions.

 

3-  Final Beneficiary Registration

In compliance with the provisions of DNR Informative Circular No. 008-2021, the Final Beneficiary Registry began operations on April 19, 2021, establishing the schedule in which commercial companies must make the corresponding declaration:

 

Commercial Companies whose company name begins with the letters A – H Must update their basic information and declare its Final Beneficiary in the period between April 19, 2021 and October 18, 2021
Commercial Companies whose company name begins with the letters I – Z Must update their basic information and declare its Final Beneficiary in the period between October 19, 2021 and April 18, 2022.

Commercial Companies incorporated after April 19, 2021

 

Must declare its Final Beneficiary within 30 days after its incorporation

Consequently, the mercantile companies whose denomination or company name begins with the letters comprised between “I” to “Z”, must have their basic information updated before the Mercantile Registry (shareholding composition, domicile social and legal representative) and have made the declaration of the Final Beneficiary before April 18 2022, otherwise they will incur infringements sanctioned as follows:

  • The administrative sanctions basically consist of publication for non-compliance and the immobilization registry transactions; The first means that any company, bank or other governmental institution will be able to verify that the company has not complied with the declaration of the final beneficiary and the second is that as long as the omissions have not been corrected, the company will not be able to register any kind of contracts, powers of attorney, Board of Directors elections, among others.
  • Fines for non-compliance with the provisions of the law and regulations range from US $ 100.00 to US $ 1,500.00.

Our recommendation in this regard is to verify if there are transfers of shares that have not been registered in order to proceed with their registration together with the domicile of their legal representative and the domicile of the company, so that before April 18 of this year the company can make the declaration without inconvenience.