Corporate debt with Ecuador’s tax authority

Of every 100 published dollars

66% enforceable 31% disputed 3% under plans

The enforceable-debt list is the massive one: 312,912 taxpayers and a median of $61. The disputed-debt list is its exact opposite: 1,269 taxpayers contest $1,667 M, the equivalent of 47% of all the country's enforceable debt, with a median 2,452 times larger. 90.1% of that amount sits in companies and the 100 largest files concentrate 76.3%: arguing with the treasury is, above all, a matter of few people and much money.

And the profile inverts relative to the enforceable list: if big enforceable debt lives in companies that already closed, the disputed money sits in companies still running. 70.1% of the disputed corporate amount belongs to active companies of the registry, and another $206.3 M to entities not in the corporate directory, such as banks (supervised by the banking regulator) and insurers.

Payment plans are the small list and the liveliest: $136.4 M in agreements from 12,748 taxpayers, with a median of $1.3 k: nobody asks for installments over a pocket-sized fine. 88.2% of the corporate amount sits in active companies, because negotiating is the business of whoever keeps operating. The sector that negotiates the most: mining and quarrying, with 11.6% of everything agreed.

The three lists barely share debtors: 82.7% of those who dispute and 91.1% of those who negotiate installments do not appear on the enforceable list. Each obligation sits in a single situation at a time, so the three portfolios add up without duplication: $5,329 M in total.

Of every 100 debtors

81% individuals 17% companies

Of every 100 dollars owed

31% individuals 68% companies

There are 4.8 individual debtors for every company debtor, but the average company owes 10 times more than the average person. The two ribbons are the same population counted by heads and counted by money: whoever is the majority in one is the minority in the other.

The detail of each group

The median is the debt of the taxpayer that splits the group in two; the average spreads the total across everyone. An average hundreds of times the median warns how unequal the split is: a few enormous debtors drag the average. Companies also carry 4.9 pending obligations each, against 2.7 for individuals.

• In dissolution $1,051 M · 49.3% 13,040 companies
• Historical $652 M · 30.6% 4,166 companies
• Active $360.9 M · 16.9% 23,401 companies
• Cancelled $60.3 M · 2.8% 91 companies
• Other statuses $7.5 M · 0.4% 29 companies
• Inactive $1.4 M · 0.1% 88 companies

Of the $2,134 M the registry's companies owe, 49.3% belongs to 13,040 companies in dissolution: firms that already stopped operating and whose debt will hardly be collected. The debt of the ones still alive is much smaller (23,401 active companies owe $360.9 M), and it must be read against the whole registry: of the country's 181,613 active companies, 12.9% carry enforceable debt.

That distinction completely changes the reading of the national headline: $3,525 M sounds like a treasury bled dry by operating businesses, when in fact the living, corporate share of the problem is $360.9 M.

And it is not a corporate quirk: the same happens among individuals. 60.0% of their debt ($662.3 M) sits in suspended RUC numbers, people who already closed their activity. In both universes, large tax debt piles up after stopping, not while working.

Active companies · by domicile

$17 k $177 M · logarithmic scale

Guayas concentrates $176.6 M, nearly half of the active companies' debt; Pichincha follows with $70.6 M.

Province of the domicile registered with the Superintendencia de Compañías, the place the company operates from today.

Individuals · by domicile

$1.3 M $265 M · logarithmic scale

Here Pichincha and Guayas run nearly tied ($264.6 M and $259.7 M), but the figure that jumps out is El Oro: 12,290 debtors accumulate $162 M, more than provinces with twice the debtors.

Province of the domicile declared to the SRI, from the public RUC registry. Deducing it from the first two digits of the national ID would have been easier and quite wrong: those digits say where the document was issued, not where the person lives.

Active companies, by sector

• Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles $126.5 M 6,182 companies with debt
• Construction $51.7 M 2,261 companies with debt
• Manufacturing $40.7 M 1,467 companies with debt
• Transportation and storage $31 M 1,715 companies with debt
• Professional, scientific and technical activities $23.1 M 3,228 companies with debt
• Mining and quarrying $22.1 M 240 companies with debt
• Agriculture, forestry and fishing $21.3 M 1,346 companies with debt
• Administrative and support service activities $17.6 M 1,848 companies with debt
• Accommodation and food service activities $8.9 M 925 companies with debt
• Real estate activities $3.7 M 877 companies with debt

Active individuals, by sector

• Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles $151.4 M 71,053 people with debt
• Professional, scientific and technical activities $84.3 M 18,386 people with debt
• Other service activities $48.9 M 31,835 people with debt
• Agriculture, forestry and fishing $20.2 M 16,966 people with debt
• Manufacturing $18.4 M 14,646 people with debt
• Construction $16.6 M 6,596 people with debt
• Mining and quarrying $11.1 M 302 people with debt
• Accommodation and food service activities $10.5 M 11,543 people with debt
• Transportation and storage $9.4 M 11,635 people with debt
• Real estate activities $6.4 M 3,131 people with debt