Unreported accounts in the United States: AFIP sends a “block” request for information

While the project of the new money laundering has not yet been introduced officially in CongressThe government sends a request for information to the United States after signing the FATCA agreement (Law on Tax Compliance on Foreign Accounts) for the exchange of fiscal and tax data.

In the coming days, the Federal Administration of Public Revenue (AFIP) will send a request for the delivery of data for a “package” of accounts of about 300 CUITs. “The United States agreed to send information in packages,” said the head of AFIP, Carlos Castagneto, according to the case-by-case scheme, but by block. In any case, it is not yet an automatic and mass exchange of information.

At the end of last year, the government signed a tax exchange agreement with the company NOW which enables the sharing of account information in two countries. It is a reciprocal agreement, although the biggest benefit will be the local tax administration. According to official estimates, there are many Argentines with undeclared accounts in the United States 100 billion US dollars.

About 1,000 million dollars a year are expected to come in to pay taxes, but he also plans to launch a laundry project that was not included in the extraordinary sessions. The Legislative Assembly will open next March 1 and it is expected that the project will be on the agenda. But until now, part of the executive branch was skeptical about its approval.

“It’s something that Congress has to deal with,” Castagneto said about washing during a tour of the Customs-AFIP dog training center in Boulognewhere 10 pairs of trainers and dogs were rewarded for their trajectories in various operations that enabled the detection of banknotes and drugs at border crossings and port terminals.

The IGA agreement signed with the United States has the approval of the IMF. “An international agreement on the exchange of information with the USA could support the mobilization of (fiscal) revenues and the accumulation of reserves,” they point out in the Fund, which with a team from the Ministry of Economy is checking the fulfillment of goals in the last quarter of 2022, as well as estimates for this year, where the Government the table puts the cost of war and the impact of drought.

“Since I took office, we have firmly said that Argentina needed the United States to stop being a tax haven for tax-dodging citizens“, assured Sergio Massa when the agreement he signed in Argentina in consultation with Ambassador Marc Stanley was launched.

deadlines for information

Mass and automatic exchange between two countries will start in 2024, according to sources in the United States. However, the Government assures that the process of timely information was accelerated after the signing of the agreement which entered into force on January 1 of this year but it will include annual information, with cuts in September.

In this context, the first ‘packages’ mentioned by Castagneto will make it possible to obtain information in a little less than a month. The exchange of tax information can take an average of 20 days, even in current agreements with other countries.

By starting the mechanism, The government will receive the identification of the account holder, the gross amount of dividends received and other accounts in the United States, while in recent months work has been done to unify banking systems for the transfer of information.