One of the fundamental pillars to guarantee the correct fulfillment of the obligations by the taxpayers is the proper official interpretation of the rules that regulate them, which must be produced with respect not only of its content, but also of the scope that the Constitutional Court in its judgments.

The examples of the deficient performance of the legal office of the governing body of national taxes in this matter, have become constant in recent times. Let's mention only three:

1. The ignorance of the provision which states that no withholding tax should be made on payments or credits in accounts that are exempt in the head of the beneficiary, when it considered that they do not detract from the minimum withholding tax on severance payments.

2. This erroneous position was reiterated in the pronouncement of February 4, in which, additionally to limiting the scope of the Court's Judgment, which considered 25% of exempted labor income as a purification factor in the Iman-Imas systems, it was stated that this value does not diminish the minimum retention base of the 'employees' either.

3. The case ignored the clear conclusions of the C-291 of 2015 in Resolution No. 000029 of March 29, which, by modifying the instructions of the income forms, prevents losses in the 2015 statement in 2013 and 2014 in which believes and requires that this be possible only from the 2016 taxable year.

The inaccuracies in this field lead to frequent rectifications and produce uncertainty in the successful application of the tangled legal world that governs Colombian taxes. Good care in public administration is an imperative that cannot be ignored by those who work for public organizations, under penalty of having to assume consequences for their decisions, omissions or overreach, in the terms indicated by the Constitution, the law and its regulations, as stipulated by the principle of 'responsibility' contained in the Code of Administrative Procedure and Administrative Litigation.

A task as fundamental as the one mentioned in these lines, should be entrusted to people who have an important track record in tax matters. When this function is deposited in servers that do not have this indispensable and extensive experience, despite their efficient performance in areas different from the tax administration, unfortunate results are obtained that affect not only the administered, but the State, since they lead to that both incur unnecessary costs, contrary to the principle of 'economy' that governs administrative actions.

The reality is that the inspection processes carried out by the tax offices, in most cases, are based, more on the concepts uttered by the legal entity than in the legal provisions. In these instances, it matters little whether or not they comply with the law and jurisprudence. Even instructions against this procedure, which were taught in the past by the current director of the Dian, are lost sight of.

These misguided behaviors are reflected in the volume of judicial proceedings that, in recent years, have increased substantially before the jurisdiction of the administrative litigation

It is urgent that the Dian rescue the correct path of legal rigor and respect for the normative hierarchy and the pronouncements of the high courts.

*Ex-director Dian (Colombian tax entity )