You are Carlos Alberto Mendoza, a public accountant and independent consultant in Bogotá. It is nine in the evening on 22 July 2025, your 2024 income tax return is due in a few weeks, and when you cross-check your books against your bank statements the two folders do not match. Before you file, you have to decide what gross income to declare.
The situation
Since 2012 you have advised small and mid-sized manufacturers on processes and systems. You file as an individual, almost all your income is project fees paid by bank transfer, and you keep your own books at night, after your clients' books are done. Because your clients do not withhold tax at source systematically, you pay almost all of the year's tax at the end. You know the tax authority, the DIAN, cross-checks more and more data from banks, clients and third parties.
Your 2024 records show gross income of COP 150 million, deductions of COP 26.9 million and calculated tax of COP 43.1 million. The statements tell a longer story. In December two transfers of 2 million each came in, one for a conference and one for the rights to an article in a trade journal; you treated them as one-off income and never recorded them. And a colleague who uses part of your office paid you about 8 million over the year, which you subtracted from the rent you pay instead of recording it as income.
There is more to review: a COP 2.4 million laptop bought in March, which your books depreciate over five years, and deductions that will need a review of their own. But tonight the question is the income line. Your personal dashboard shows tax compliance at 50 out of 100, audit risk at 75% and penalty risk at zero, because you have not filed anything yet.