Aug.26 to September 2- Filing to get your IVA Taxes back with the SRI

As mentioned in my blog many times before, Ecuador treats it’s older people very well. As well as half price off on most things, bus rides, plane tickets, movie tickets etc, I, as a person over the age of 65 and a resident, can apply to receive my IVA taxes back. These IVA taxes are much like our Canadian GST/HST, a kind of goods and services tax. They apply to almost everything we buy and are 12%. When you go to pay your bill, be it at a store or restaurant, you must give them your cedula so that the bill will have your name and cedula on it.

So what follows is my adventure or lack thereof –LOL- in getting registered. We’ve been over the bureaucratic nightmare many times before of living in my beloved Ecuador.

Several of my friends have already been through this and I was given many different pieces of advice. The most important was what documents were required to complete the process.

First I needed my cedula and a colour copy thereof- done. Next, I needed a letter from my bank- yes, you require an Ecuadorian bank account- see my Blog  http://uwepetrastravelyear.blogspot.com/2012/01/jan26-getting-ecuadorian-bank-account.html

 re getting one. We have an account at the Banco Pichincha so off we went to get that done first. You have to talk to the bank officers sitting near the front door of our branch on the Salinas Malecon. Here we took a number and then sat with the next available person. I had written down in Spanish as to what I required and handed it to the young man. He seemed a bit mystified but after conversing with his peer at the adjoining desk, he accessed the system for our bank information.  We gave him both our cedulas and our account number. When we had gotten our account back in January 2012, we only had our old passports since replaced. He told us he needed to change to our cedula numbers now and could do so - yea! After only a few moments he gave me a letter to sign for the bank’s records and a letter he signed for the SRI/IVA office. This was way too easy!

The next day after getting a copy of the bank letter- yes, you need original plus a copy- we were off to the SRI office in La Libertad where this application and future filing is handled. The office is on the main road near the La Libetad Malecon in the same block as Banco Guayaquil. We had also been told that it would not be necessary to take an interpreter if we dealt with Carla Villon on the second floor who spoke perfect English. This proved the best advice of all. When we walked in there were many many people waiting to talk to the several officers working on this floor. I went to the security guard and told him I needed to see Carla Villon on the second floor and was told to go right up. On the second floor we were the only ones and were shown into one of several offices immediately. Now the only bad news is that Carla was not there today but one of the women in that office spoke some English. Between my broken Spanish and her English, we managed to get across what I needed. After showing her all my paper work and my cedula, she gave me the application form and asked me to return  on Monday and then deal with Carla.

Monday arrived and back we went. This time armed with our August bills totaled as to number of bills and IVA for those bills. Again there were many people downstairs and again I told the security guard we needed to see Carla Villon upstairs and again no problem. This time there were two groups of people in front of us, both Ecuadorian and filing their monthly bills. Our turn came quickly and I asked the young woman if she was Carla Villon- yes- yea! I gave her all my papers, she filled out yet another form which I had to sign and then had her boss approve. And yet again- no problems! Wow, can you believe it. Can this be Ecuador?

After this, I had to go downstairs to a young man who again spoke English to get my password so that I could enter their computer system to check on my filings and returns- WOW!

And that was it! I could file next month’s bills anytime from the 1^st to the 7^th of the next month or any month thereafter ( the date depended on your cedula number) and the IVA returns would come into my bank account after each quarter. Of course, we now wait to see if this actually happens. Stay tuned.