Surprise AFIP operations in kiosks to control the price of cigarettes

In a unique deployment, the Federal Public Revenue Administration (AFIP) inspected this Thursday more than one hundred kiosks throughout the country, in an operation that sought to detect undue markups on cigarettes, a product with a high tax burden and with a value of regulated sale.

Price control of the collecting agency detected that the different brands are sold in prices between 1% and 20% above the established. They even detected that in a specific case the cigarettes are sold in kiosks with an additional 200% of the value declared to the State. However, they did not disclose the brand in question.

The AFIP will initiate the corresponding complaint channels for tax evasion in a market, such as tobacco, whose prices are regulated. In practice – especially since the inflationary jumps at the end of Kirchnerism – cigarettes experienced for the user what the tax agency directed by Florencia Misrahi defined as “a distortion between the sales price to the consumer and that reported by the manufacturer.” , in a statement that explained the operations.

The action, in addition to the detection of tax evasion, seemed to serve as a warning to deactivate an irregular practice that has increased in the market since the pandemic and also with the application of municipal taxes to the kiosks that merchants diverted to tobacco products. .

In an official statement issued on Thursday afternoon, the entity detailed the scenario: “There is a distortion between the sale price to the consumer and that reported by the manufacturer to the AFIP, which In some brands they reach 200% above the declared price“.

And he warns of raids on more actors in the tobacco sector: “On the other hand, the inspection of 43 intermediary distributors in the purchase and sale of cigarettes within which it was found that more than 85% are taxpayers apocryphal or ‘cardboard’ and were used by some manufacturers to carry out maneuvers with the sale price and evade taxes“.

The thing is The AFIP has jurisdiction to determine prices in the field. And tobacco had its own chapter in the Base Law. In title VIII of that law, several issues were established with respect to tobacco companies and cigarettes, whose price is made up of 76.9% by taxes charged by the national State to discourage consumption.

On the one hand, when collecting taxes, when the sales price reported by the tobacco companies is not an ideal basis for setting the taxable value (for example because it is lower than the price that arises from the survey carried out by the AFIP), it must govern the price that that entity determines, except in the event that the companies prove that it is really a market price.

Also The AFIP will have among its tasks to update the amount of taxes in January, April, July and October of each yeara question that will be determined, to a large extent, by the Consumer Price Index (IPC). Furthermore, the collection entity may act ex officio in cases in which the billing declared in nominal terms is suspicious, and take charge of ensuring that the settlement is carried out by the tobacco company that may incur in violations.