Local Taxes: Is the Publication of Legal Regulations on a Municipality’s Website Valid?

On September 27, 2018, in re: “Municipalidad de Junín c/ Cadbury Stani Adams Argentina SAIC s/ Apremio”, the Argentine Supreme Court of Justice (the “CSJN” after its acronym in Spanish) revoked the Province of Buenos Aires Supreme Court of Justice’s decision, and ordered the court to rule again. To such extent, the CSJN shared the Attorney General’s legal opinion, issued on March 3, 2017.

The Attorney General’s legal opinion began with a summary of the factual background of the case. The Municipality of Junín claimed the payment of a local tax on advertisements, which derived in a tax enforcement procedure. In such procedure, the taxpayer (that changed its name to “Kraft Foods Argentina SA” and is currently known as “Mondelez Argentina SA”) alleged, among other defenses, the non-existence of the debt, arguing that the regulations that set forth the municipal tax had not been published in the Official Gazette. On the other hand, the Municipality stated that the local legislation had been duly published on its website.

The Province of Buenos Aires Supreme Court of Justice did not address the defense of the taxpayer, and pointed out that the matter was not reviewable as it involved factual and evidence issues.

However, the Attorney General considered that the court should have evaluated whether the publication on the Municipality’s website fulfilled the necessary requirements for the purpose of granting: (i) that it is an official publication; and (ii) that it entails a satisfactory disclosure and provides certainty regarding the authenticity of the text, its publication date and its durability in time during the claimed fiscal periods.

Provided that the court omitted such analysis, the Attorney General’s Agency concluded that the ruling satisfied only in an apparent way the need to be a derivation of the current law;  therefore, ordered that a new ruling should be issued.

This decision is worth noting since there are several municipalities that do not publish their legal regulations in the Official Gazette, but instead do it through their own websites. Although the CSJN did not fully reject the publication of the legislation on the website, it considered that such publication was not sufficient to fulfill the publicity required for government acts. Thus, the Court ordered that a new ruling should be issued, which should address the requirements mentioned in the Attorney General’s legal opinion.