Análisis del principio de la no confiscatoriedad del impuesto de industria y comercio en el transporte de carga terrestre realizado por la Cooperativa Santandereana de Transportadores Limitada “Copetran” durante el periodo 2018-2019

Abstract

Non-confiscation is a constitutional tax principle that guarantees the right to private property; which is fundamental of any democratic state. This principle establishes limits to the tax authority, granted by the political constitution to the legislative bodies of national and municipal order, to guarantee the rights of taxpayers. In this sense, this research analyzed the principle of non-confiscation of the industry and trade tax inland freight transport carried out by Copetran during the 2018-2019 taxable periods. For the development of this work, a dogmatic-legal and legal-purposeful methodology was established. The legal, juridical, and tax information including the requirements issued by the territorial entities for the mentioned periods were requested in writing from the company through the tax department to define the tax environment. In turn, the possible scenarios in which the principle of non-confiscation regarding the industry and commerce tax was violated were identified through the analysis and classification of the mayors' notices to the cooperative. As the main finding of the study, a persuasive official letter issued by the Buenaventura mayor's office in 2019 was identified, where possible indications were found to violate the principle of non-confiscation attributing tax burdens to factual assumptions not determined in the regulations or the jurisprudence. Consequently, it is suggested that the territorial entity of Buenaventura violates the constitutional precepts and the right to private property, adversely affecting the economic growth of Copetran.