Candys Dorado – Associate

According to a report by ASFI between 2016 and 2020 the purchase of digital services such as Netflix, YouTube and Google, rose by 56%. Due to the fact that a large part of these services is provided by foreign persons (natural or legal) without any taxation in the national territory, on April 27, 2021, a draft law was presented to the Plurinational Legislative Assembly to expand the scope of VAT including within this tax, services provided from abroad through digital platforms, such as:

Intermediation in the purchase and sale of goods or services of any type;

Supply, download, streaming or transfer by any other type of technology, videos, music, games, texts, magazines, books and other similar;

Provision of software, storage, platforms or IT infrastructure;

Spread of advertisement by any support or digital media; and,

Any other digital service, that are consumed, used or exploited in national territory.

For this purpose, it is understood that the digital service is consumed, used, provided or exploited in Bolivia when the transfer, download or reception through the internet or other technology is made to a user’s device with an IP address, SIM card, of the mobile phone or another geolocation mechanism that is located in the national territory.

Due to this, the taxable event will be perfected at the time of consumption, use or exploitation in the national territory, or at the payment of the price, whichever occurs first, but there will be no obligation to issue services.