Uruguay
The Uruguayan government will include cooperatives in the regulation of the VAT exemption for housing
Housing federations will take part in designing how the benefit provided for in the 2025 Accountability Bill will be applied. The sector is calling for the fiscal cost to be covered by the National Housing Fund rather than by General Revenues.
The Ministries of Housing and Territorial Planning and of Economy and Finance have formed a working group to define how the VAT exemption for housing cooperatives provided for in Article 342 of the 2025 Accountability Bill will be applied. According to la diaria, the measure has already been unanimously approved in the Chamber of Deputies and still must pass through the Senate.
In that context, Housing Minister Tamara Paseyro announced at an event at Fecovi headquarters that, once the study between the two ministries has advanced, they will call on the federations to jointly draft the regulation. Fecovi, Fucvam, Covipro and PVS will take part.
According to la diaria, the four federations agree that the central issue is to define where the fiscal waiver will come from: whether from the National Housing Fund, within the ministry, or from General Revenues. The cooperative movement’s common position is that resources earmarked for social housing should not be affected.
Fucvam president Enrique Cal warned the outlet that if the reimbursement of those amounts falls on the National Housing Fund, the ministry’s capacity to invest in cooperatives, relocations and rural housing would be reduced. In the same vein, Sergio Requel, of Covipro, told la diaria that such an alternative would create a long-term financing problem.
Another issue under discussion is when the discount will take effect. Requel said that for cooperatives it would be more convenient for it to be applied during construction, because that would reduce the borrowed capital and prevent those amounts from generating interest until the end of the process.
According to Eduardo Tropiano, of PVS, in comments to la diaria, one of the options being considered by the MVOT is for the VAT paid during construction to remain accumulated at the General Tax Directorate as a credit note and be deducted from the loan at the end of the work. The federations, by contrast, propose that this credit be usable on a monthly or quarterly basis, for example to cover contributions to the Social Security Bank during construction.
On the effects of the measure, Requel said the reduction could translate into a 10% drop in cooperative members’ monthly payments, something that would also have an impact on subsidies. Meanwhile, Daniel Logado, of Fecovi, told la diaria that construction costs and the appraisal values used by the ministry for loans would also decrease.
Logado added that the cooperative movement still has other demands beyond this stage, including that the exemption also apply to existing cooperatives that need renovations, and not only to those that sign deeds from 2027 onward.
Sources
About this note. Written by El Notero with the assistance of artificial intelligence, based on what was published by the cited outlet. El Notero did not conduct its own reporting on this event.
