Bolivia promotes free tax assistance to low-income individuals

The Public University of El Alto has launched the first Accounting and Tax Support Centre (NAF) in Bolivia with the support of EUROsociAL. Other universities in the country are joining the initiative.

With the goal of providing tax advice to low-income sectors of the population and promoting greater tax awareness among university students, Bolivia’s National Tax Service (SIN) has opened an Accounting and Tax Support Centre (NAF) at the Public University of El Alto (UPEA) (Inauguration of the NAF).

The NAF at the UPEA is staffed by 25 students in the Public Accounting programme who were trained by the SIN. During its first weeks of operation, tax and accounting assistance was provided free of charge to nearly 100 citizens, including low-income micro-entrepreneurs and informal workers wanting to regularise their situation.

The EUROsociAL programme, within its working line Strengthening of tax education programmes, supported the process of creating NAFs in Bolivia in 2014 and more recently through an expert advising mission from 11th to 15th May from Brazil’s Receita Federal (Federal Revenue), University of Passo Fundo and Federal University of Fronteira Sul.

The experience exchange between Brazil and Bolivia was carried out through a series of workshops with active participation by students and professors of public and private universities in La Paz, El Alto and Cochabamba (La Salle, Salesiana, Católica La Paz, La Paz Military Engineering School, Católica Cochabamba, UNIFRANZ La Paz, UNIFRANZ El Alto, UNIVALLE La Paz and UMSA). All of them made a commitment to promoting the creation of NAFs in the short term, following in the footsteps of the UPEA.

The NAFs are an initiative started by the Receita Federal and, thanks to EUROsociAL’s support, they are now present in over 100 universities in Mexico, Honduras, Brazil, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile and Guatemala.