This levy is highly important both because of the considerable revenue it raises for the State—being, in origin, a public and compulsory pecuniary obligation, that is, a legal figure of a tax nature—and because it serves as customs control over the entry of tangible and intangible goods for sale in the national territory. It is therefore necessary to focus on fiscal, tax and trade policy, since it involves creating a levy for the provision of a service that also has a deterrent purpose, discouraging practices harmful to market development in our country: failing to import goods legally damages the business of small and large entrepreneurs who import products to sell in the country in accordance with the tariff rules and regime established in our tax system for customs clearance.
In the Ecuadorian State, the power to create customs control fees is granted by the Constitution and regulated by law. Therefore, provided the fee is established within the principles of statutory reserve and legality, as well as the other constitutional principles set out in Article 300 of the Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador—namely generality, progressivity, efficiency, administrative simplicity, non-retroactivity, equity, transparency and revenue sufficiency—and the principle of non-confiscation, which, although not a tax principle as such, is established in Article 323 of the same Constitution, within the chapter on Labor and Protection, prohibiting all forms of confiscation. Within these limits on taxing the provision of a service, whether actual or potential, any customs control fee issued by the highest customs tax authority in Ecuador, namely the Director General of the National Customs Service of Ecuador (SENAE), will be valid and binding on those for whom the taxable event occurs.
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