A circus act of taxing power 🎪
- Carlos A. Fonseca Sarmiento
- Dec 23, 2025
- 2 min read
Legislative Decree No. 1644 and SUNAT Resolution No. 000010-2025 present a curious—and legally problematic—performance in the field of gaming taxation.
The Excise Tax (ISC) is conceptually aimed at the consumer. However, the Legislative Decree chooses to target only a specific group of consumers: domiciled players who participate on platforms operated by non-domiciled operators. This selection is not explained by any relevant material difference or by a distinct contributory capacity, yet it becomes the axis of the regulatory design.
Pero el verdadero acto de magia aparece con la Resolución de la SUNAT. Como si el sujeto pasivo pudiera surgir de una resolución administrativa y no de una norma con rango de ley, irresponsablemente convierte a los operadores domiciliados en contribuyentes. Se abandona el guion constitucional y se comienzan a crear personajes nuevos, sin sustento legal y sin mayor reparo, como si la potestad tributaria admitiera improvisación.
Along this path, the principles of equality and legality (reservation of law) are sacrificed without reflection: substantially equivalent situations receive different treatment, and an administrative resolution seeks to redefine what the legislature never established. There is no technical analysis to support it, nor any motivation to justify it—only the hope that the trick goes unnoticed.
The next act attempts to go even further: to conjure contributory capacity where none exists. It seeks to tax bonuses that do not constitute real money, as if acts devoid of effective wealth could give rise to a legitimate tax base. But tax law is not illusionism: the magic fails when the hat is empty.
This type of regulatory design recalls what Stephen Breyer called anecdotal regulations: rules enacted without empirical evidence or solid technical foundations, which end up being unworkable, useless, or both.
The circus metaphor is not rhetorical excess.
It is an accurate description of what happens when taxing power is exercised without method, without limits, and without respect for the Constitution.
Because regulation may be complex—but it should never be a spectacle.
