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Less Spending, Tax Evasion Control and Tax Reform
Source: Treasury Secretary (Costa Rica)
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Costa Rica's government announced the measures it intends to implement in order to deal with growing government spending and improve public finances.
The press release from the Ministry of Finance highlights the three pillars of the measures and the actions to undertake in each of them:
1. Control of public spending
- No additional hiring or use of current vacancies
- Reduction of 20% of expenditures authorized in the nation´s budget for 2011
- Optimization of government purchase systems
- Explicit tax expenditures
- Identify unfunded costs generated by decisions of the Legislature
2. More and better tax evasion control
- Increase of 20% of Extended Control Actions
- Increase by 20% in Intensive Control Actions
- Strengthening in resolution of pending cases at all instances, exhaustion of administrative remedies so to firmly declare debts liquid and payable
- Integration of efforts with the Attorney General's Office to reduce levels of impunity in cases of criminal charges for tax evasion
- Encourage use of credit cards and debit transactions
- Reference values for sectors of sensitive goods
- Improvement and extension of the simplified system model
3. Legal reform to seek tax equity and solidarity (tax reform).