Article 237 of Law No. 822 “Ley de Concertación Tributaria” (LCT) creates the Stamp Tax, also called ITF. This is an indirect tax levied on the consumption of certain legal acts, which are contemplated in Article 240 of the aforementioned law, with its respective applicable rate.
Pursuant to Article 239 LCT, the tax stamps shall have the denominations and other characteristics defined by the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit, which shall be established by ministerial agreement. Last December twentieth, two thousand twenty two, the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit of the Republic of Nicaragua published the “Ministerial Agreement No. 020-2022”, through which the new rates, denominations and characteristics of the Tax Stamps are agreed upon. The changes in the Stamp Tax contemplated in the Ministerial Agreement became effective as of January first of the year two thousand twenty-three and will be applicable until December thirty-first of the same year.
The update of the Tax Stamp Tax rate is due to the provisions of Article 240 of Law No. 987 “Law on Amendments and Additions to Law No. 822, Tax Agreement Law”, which in its pertinent part states:
“The FTT quota shall be updated annually as of January 1, 2020, taking as reference the greater between the annual devaluation of the official exchange rate of Cordoba with respect to the United States Dollar and the annual Inflation rate of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) published by the Central Bank of Nicaragua (BCN), observed in the last twelve months available.
The update of the FTT fee shall be calculated and published by the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit, by means of a ministerial agreement, during the first twenty days of December of the year prior to its entry into force”.
In order to know the details of the new rates of the Stamp Tax applicable to the different legal acts contemplated in the current legislation, as well as the new denominations of these, you may observe the update table contained in Agreement No. 020 – 2022, which you may find attached.