Editor’s Note
This article reports on the Mexican Tax Administration Service (SAT) launching verification visits to taxpayers’ homes as part of anti-money laundering efforts. The initiative targets individuals engaged in activities deemed vulnerable to financial crime.
With the intention of combating money laundering, the Tax Administration Service (SAT) has initiated verification visits to the homes of taxpayers who are obligated subjects engaged in vulnerable activities.
On October 3, the SAT sent letters en masse to taxpayers inviting them to regularize their situation. In the writing, they gave a deadline of 15 business days for the notified persons to declare whether or not they carry out vulnerable activities.
The decision to request taxpayers to get up to date came after the agency detected some cases of subjects who carry out vulnerable activities and are negligent in their compliance with obligations under the Federal Law for the Prevention and Identification of Operations with Illicit Proceeds (LFPIORPI).
Vulnerable operations are those in which a taxpayer is exposed to money laundering. For example, if a person owns a hotel and sells it, but the buyer pays and it is not known if their money was illicit, then that is a vulnerable activity.
In general, a vulnerable activity is based on the purchase of objects, art, jewelry, perfumes, cars, etc., where cash is used, but you do not know its origin.
The SAT sent the notice to the citizens who require it, which stated: “It is requested to allow the aforementioned verifiers access to the address indicated in this order, as well as to give them the necessary facilities for its compliance, since not providing the facilities for the verification visit to be carried out or for its development, and not making all the information available to them constitutes an infraction.”
Furthermore, in April of this year, the SAT published the provisions that must be carried out for compliance with obligations. These provisions establish the form, terms, and procedures that must be observed for self-regularization.
Therefore, it detailed that taxpayers must get up to date, especially those who carry out vulnerable activities and who are not complying with their obligations regarding the prevention and identification of operations with illicit proceeds for the period from July 1, 2013, to December 31, 2018.
Silvia Matus, a member of the Money Laundering Prevention Commission of the College of Public Accountants, told the newspaper El Financiero that although the Anti-Money Laundering Law came into force in 2013, it is only now that the SAT decides to exercise its supervisory powers, due to Mexico’s commitments with the International Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
The FATF is an intergovernmental body whose objectives consist of establishing standards and promoting the effective implementation of legal, regulatory, and operational measures to combat money laundering, terrorist financing, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and other threats related to the integrity of the international financial system.
The International Financial Action Task Force was created in 1989 by the Group of Seven G-7. In April 1990, it announced its recommendations aimed at providing a necessary action plan for the fight against money laundering.
