Judgment of June 17, 2026: The Superior Court of Tax Litigation – Guayana Region – overturns a fine for failure to file a formal tax return under the Law on the Protection of Social Security Pensions Against the Imperialist Blockade – No employees and no payment of wages or compensation.

The Superior Court of Tax Litigation – Guayana Region, in a judgment dated June 17, 2026; resolved the action for annulment filed by the company DICASA, C.A., challenging the resolution imposing a fine of Bs. 39,000 (1,000 times the BCV exchange rate) for failure to comply with formal obligations due to the omission of filing Form 99019 with SENIAT for the special pension contribution.

In the case in question, SENIAT determined that there had been a failure to file a return for the period of May 2024; consequently, it imposed an automatic fine, based on the principle that any legal entity engaged in economic activity is required to file a return and pay taxes, and therefore failure to file constitutes a punishable formal violation. The company argued that, since its economic activity was limited to the leasing of real property, it had no employees and did not pay wages. Consequently, it alleged the existence of a false factual basis due to the absence of a taxable event; a defect in reasoning; and an abuse of power, as the decision was based solely on an automated system that does not allow for a declaration of zero or less, without verifying whether a taxable event had occurred. The Court upheld the appeal and annulled the fine, ordering SENIAT to remove it from the iSENIAT system; on the grounds that the regulation expressly states that the tax liability arises only if there are wage payments, and if there are employees; therefore, without employees, there is no taxable event or tax liability. The Court held that, since the system does not allow for reporting zero employees, a false factual assumption was established by imposing a penalty without verifying the actual circumstances; consequently, tax audits cannot be based exclusively on automated data, and stipulates that there must be a substantive verification, since without a taxable event, there can be no tax.

This ruling is the first decision related to the “Law on the Protection of Social Security Pensions Against the Imperialist Blockade,” published in the Official Gazette on May 8, 2024, No. 6,806 Extraordinary; given that this law established that its provisions are matters of public policy, and that in case of doubt, its interpretation must be the one most favorable to the “protection of pensions,” it sets an important initial precedent, which must be monitored for the purposes of interpreting the application of the tax.

Let us recall that: a) Taxpayers are private legal entities or partnerships, whether or not they are domiciled in Venezuela, that carry out economic activities within the national territory. b) The law establishes that the income used to calculate this contribution may never be less than the “indexed monthly minimum income” set by the executive branch, a concept defined in Article 6 of Decree No. 4,805, “Increase in the Monthly Minimum Income for the Protection of the Venezuelan People” published in the Official Gazette No. 6,746 (Extraordinary Edition) of May 1, 2023; which encompasses all items associated with workers’ wages, whether or not they affect the wage base, and those benefits granted for the purpose of supplementing the social protection of the Venezuelan people, including the “Socialist Food Voucher” and the “Bonus Against the Economic War,” and c) Although it was not published in the Official Gazette, the increase in this item announced on May 1, 2027—as reflected on the SENIAT platform—sets the minimum contribution base per declared worker at the amount in bolívares equivalent to two hundred forty United States dollars (USD$240), according to the official exchange rate of the Central Bank of Venezuela.