32 mayors of Ecuador did not declare Income Tax

The media that denounces this fact qualifies them as the club of mayors who do not declare IR.

 An investigation by an Ecuadorian media reveals that 32 mayors paid zero dollars. In other words, they did not record payment or did not declare Income Tax (IR) in 2018 and 2019.

According to the publication, this is not the first time that the Ecuadorian authorities have not declared taxes.

“The authorities have been working in the public sector for a year and some mayors of the country have not yet registered enough income to declare the respective income tax in 2019, despite the fact that the salary of one of these local authorities in most of the cases it exceeds $ 2,000 ”, he points out.

The media clarifies that it sent emails and / or made calls to the municipalities to request the reaction of the 32 mayors, but only managed to respond to two of them.

According to the investigation, Érik Bustamante, mayor of Limón Indanza, Morona Santiago province, justified his recent tax returns, arguing that he did not reach the tax base for the Internal Revenue Service (SRI) to declare that tax.

“In the first year (2018) I did not pay tax because I did not work long enough, because I was dedicated to the private part and I had no income. The political issue did not allow me to work. In the second year (2019) we receive income, plus deductions and the payment that has to be made comes out. This year is already complete and we are going to have to pay income tax, ”explained the mayor, who according to SRI data does not record the payment of income tax in 2018 and declared $ 0 in 2019.

The journalistic report highlights that access to the information that by Transparency Law must be uploaded on the website of local governments, in the case of Limón Indanza is not available.

However, according to Mayor Bustamante, he receives a net salary of $ 3,100 by subtracting contributions to Social Security and other items, which gives a total income only in the seven working months of 2019 of $ 21,700. The tax base to declare income tax in that year was $ 11,310.

“Unlike Bustamante, the mayor of the El Pan canton, in the province of Azuay, Rigoberto Borja, justifies his recent 2019 tax declaration” to the emergency “, which began in March of this year. “Everything got complicated,” said the mayor. According to the SRI registry, he did not record the payment of said tax in 2018 and declared $ 0 in 2019.

Among the data found, 52 mayors declared less taxes in 2019 compared to 2018, while 137 paid more taxes in 2019 compared to 2018.

In addition, 87 declared USD 0 of tax, they did not register or did not file the declaration in 2018, which means that reaching the Mayor’s Office was quite good for them.

The declaration of this group of 32 mayors in 2018 and 2019.

The ranking of the 10 mayors who paid the highest income tax in 2019:

Jorge Yunda / Quito: UDS 113,002.5
 Ángel Suárez / Caluma: UDS 23,618.44
Wilson Erazo / Santo Domingo: UDS 17,236.65
Byron Cárdenas / Latacunga: UDS 15,049.12
Álex Zambrano / Balzar: UDS 14,181.42
Esperanza Torres / Shushufindi: UDS 9,506.54
Wilson Cañizares / Daule: UDS 7,671.21
Víctor Valdivieso / La Libertad: UDS 6,295.02
Carlos Barcia / Quinindé: UDS 6,087.45
Luis Barona / Cevallos: UDS 6,072.21

Source:El Expreso