Following Article 555-2 of the Tax Statute, the Colombian government established the Single Tax Registry (RUT) to identify, locate, and classify natural or legal persons who have obligations administered by the Directorate of National Taxes and Customs (DIAN), which allows managing the administration of people's information, as it provides sufficiently reliable data for the corresponding government entities to properly enforce tax, customs, and exchange obligations of individuals, simplify procedures, and reduce costs. (DIAN, 2021).
Once registration in the RUT is completed, the person will be assigned a Tax Identification Number (NIT), which, according to Article 555-1 of the Tax Statute, as its name indicates, aims to: “identify persons registered in the RUT and all taxpayers, responsible parties, withholding agents, and declarants to whom this number has been assigned for the fulfillment of their tax obligations.” (Tax Statute, 1989, art. 555-1).
Now, for natural persons registered in the RUT, the NIT corresponding to them will be their identification number, while for companies, it will correspond to a number assigned by the DIAN. Additionally, each NIT has a verification digit (DV), which is separated by a hyphen at the end. It can be said that this serves to carry out various commercial procedures or with entities and aims to verify that the assigned number indeed corresponds to the person and is registered in the RUT.
On the other hand, the Tax Registry (RUT) form is essential for keeping a record, verification, and certification of the economic activity of natural persons, so regarding the time that persons have to carry out the registration, in the case of companies, it is recommended that this registration be done before starting their economic activity through DIAN offices, chambers of commerce, or other entities authorized for this purpose (DIAN, 2021). Additionally, when a natural person is obliged to register, they will have until the due date to file their respective income tax return.
As a consequence of the above, it is also important to have clarity on the deadlines for filing each person's annual income tax return and its procedure, according to Decree 2487 of 2022, these are established based on the last digits of the NIT found in the RUT, -without considering the verification digit- and the fiscal year of the year to be declared. For example, for persons called “Large Taxpayers” -which are those belonging to the special regime-, the deadline to file the income tax return is between April 10 and April 21 of the current year and will be done according to the last digit of the NIT that appears in the taxpayer's RUT.
For companies or legal entities, the deadlines for filing and paying the tax are divided into two equal terms, where the first goes from April 10 to May 8 and the second, from July 7 to July 21 of the current year, where the maximum deadline for the first payment of each company can be seen based on the last two digits of the NIT (without taking into account the verification digit) and for the second payment, only the last digit of the NIT is taken into account, excluding the verification digit.
Finally, for natural persons, the date to file the income tax return is established according to the last two digits of the NIT without considering the verification digit, and it goes from August 9 to October 19 of the current year. However, it is necessary to clarify that not all natural persons, despite having RUT, are obliged to file the annual income tax return. For example, for the 2022 income, the only persons who are obliged are those who exceed a certain amount of the Tax Value Unit (UVT), the latter being a unit of measure of value, which represents the tax values expressed in pesos (Diario AS, 2022). Therefore, persons who are not obliged to file an income tax return are: Those whose net gross equity as of the last day of the 2022 taxable year does not exceed four thousand five hundred (4,500) UVT ($171,018,000), when gross income is less than one thousand four hundred (1,400) UVT ($53,206,000), those whose credit card consumption does not exceed one thousand four hundred (1,400) UVT ($53,206,000), persons whose total value of purchases and consumption does not exceed one thousand four hundred (1,400) UVT ($53,206,000), and those whose total accumulated value of bank deposits, consignments, or financial investments does not exceed one thousand four hundred (1,400) UVT ($53,206,000).
Bibliography
Directorate of National Taxes and Customs -DIAN-. “RUT Presentation”. Available at: https://www.dian.gov.co/impuestos/personas/Paginas/presentacion.aspx
-Decree 624 of 1989. [Presidency of the Republic of Colombia]. By which the articles of the Tax Statute, Law 1607 of 2012, Law 1819 of 2016 are regulated, and Decree 1625 of 2016 is modified. December 16, 2022. Available at: http://www.secretariasenado.gov.co/senado/basedoc/estatuto_tributario.html#1
Directorate of National Taxes and Customs -DIAN-. “Procedures and services”. Available at: https://www.dian.gov.co/atencionciudadano/Paginas/Tramites-y-Servicios-bkup.aspx Ibáñez, A. (2022). “UVT for 2023: what is it, what will its value be for 2023 according to DIAN and how much was it last year?”. Diario AS. Accessed on January 5, 2023. Available at: https://colombia.as.com/actualidad/uvt-para-2023-que-es-cual-sera-su-valor-para-2023-segun-la-dian-y-a-cuanto-estuvo-este-ano-pasado-n/
Vivian Arias – AZC CONSULTING ATTORNEY