Peruvian Economy and Finance Minister Jose Arista affirmed that around S/1.2 billion (about US$323 million) is expected to be collected every year from general sales taxes applied to streaming services, for which legislative powers will be requested to Congress.
These remarks were delivered on Wednesday at the end of the Council of Ministers session, as he underscored that Peru's economic forecast is improving.
"Growth projections for the Peruvian economy are exceeding 3%. The global economic outlook is good, the price of copper is very good, as well as the price of gold and our commodities," the government official stated.
"We hope the price of oil will not experience a steep increase, but in short, this outlook looks pretty good for us," he added.
The Economy and Finance sector's head indicated that one of the measures to be introduced to Parliament, for its approval as part of the legislative powers that will be requested, has to do with the application of the General Sales Tax (IGV) to streaming services like Internet movie providers.
"Our concern is obviously the fiscal balance and, within this, the approval of an IGV collection mechanism for everything that is streaming. The tax rate is already set, it is 18%," the minister explained.
"The issue, in this case, is that the service provider is foreign. When the IGV Law was crafted, it was assumed that the service provider or supplier of goods was always going to be domestic," he said.
"However, in this case, we have a foreign provider, and the law was not designed for those terms. It created the tax, but not the form of payment," Arista remarked.
In this regard, he noted that the Government seeks to clarify what this form of payment will be like and, thus, collect such tax as neighboring countries have done.
"This is not new. We are not creating a tax or something similar. Around S/1.2 billion (US$323 million) is expected to be collected every year from this tax," he pointed out.
(END) MDV/RMB/MVB
Published: 4/25/2024