Intercambio de información automática CRS entre Colombia y Brasil: alcance retrospectivo frente a períodos fiscales anteriores a su operatividad

Abstract

The Common Reporting Standard (CRS) for the automatic exchange of financial account information has substantially increased tax administrations’ capacity to identify foreign assets, income, and financial transactions held by their tax residents. Its use, however, raises a temporal issue when information currently obtained reveals or proves facts related to tax periods preceding the operational implementation of automatic exchange between Colombia and Brazil. This article examines the extent to which such information may be used without disregarding the temporal rules of the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters (MAAC), Colombian evidentiary rules, legal certainty, and the finality of tax returns. Using a qualitative, documentary, jurisprudential, and legal-dogmatic methodology, the study examines the MAAC, the CRS, relevant provisions of the Colombian Tax Statute, and Constitutional Court and Council of State case law. It concludes that lawfully obtained international tax information may have retrospective evidentiary effects regarding past events. Nevertheless, such evidentiary effectiveness does not, by itself, extend statutory audit powers, reopen final tax returns, or restore administrative powers that have expired. A distinction must therefore be drawn between the temporal scope of international assistance, the admissibility and probative value of foreign information, and the temporal competence of the Colombian Tax Administration.