a) Legal services for a company's tax audits

According to Costa Rican fiscal legislation, all taxpayers are subject to tax audits, which are conducted on a parcial or full basis. In the event that our clients or their company are audited, professional support from our firm is provided to ensure that the auditors carry out the standard legal procedures during the examination.

b) Individual or company's taxable status

In Costa Rica's legal system, there are specific circumstances that determine wether a person or a company are liable to tax audits. The auditing is based on a pre-established yearly fiscal plan. Should it happen that one of our clients is being audited, our first task is to verify that the individual or company fulfills the specific circumstance prescribed by law. This verification ensures the licitness of the audit.

c) Administrative hearings of the Fiscal Administration

In several occasions, the Tax Administration Agency (Administración Tributaria) requires the presence of a company's representatives in its offices in order to submit any tax information that the Agency considers important. Our firm provides the client a professional escort to the hearing in order to give legal assistance and advice throughout the interview.

d) Professional advice on the amount of information and type of documents that must be submitted to the Tax Administration Agency

As it was stated before, tax legislation enables the agency to request information from certain taxpayers; however, only under specific circumstances it should be provided; for example, in the presence of a reasonable presumption that tax evasion or a fraud is being carried out. In any event, the information requested must be of special fiscal relevance for the agency. Our firm provides two means of legal assistance to the client during this stage: first, by checking the legal basis of the information requested and second, by supervising that whatsoever is being demanded, is what the client is compelled to disclose by law.

e) Evaluation of the regulatory proposal

Upon finishing the tax audit, if the Agency has found a legal irregularity, it submits a regulatory proposal that may be accepted or rejected by the taxpayer. In the event of acceptance, the taxpayer should have professional advice regarding the proposal's legal basis, and the performance of the authorities conducting the audit. In order to choose wether to accept or not the agency's proposal, the client should seek our firm's consultanship of the facts and legal issues of it.