Argentina – New Tax Planning Informative Regime

On October 20^th, 2020, the Argentine National Tax Authorities enacted and published General Resolution No. 4838/2020, creating a new Tax Planning Informative Regime (“TPIR”), effective today.

This regime is applicable to:

a. Taxpayers, when taking part in any tax planning included within the scope of this regime.

b. Tax Advisors: individuals and entities that during their ordinary course of business, help, assist, advise, give opinions, or carry out any activity related to the implementation of tax planning, provided that they take part in such implementation directly or through third parties.

c. Tax advisors must also comply with this regime when other related tax advisors implement a tax planning structure included in the scope of this regime, regardless of the jurisdiction where the tax advisor is located or domiciled.

The informative obligation is autonomous for each of the abovementioned persons, i.e., compliance with the regime by one of the above does not release the rest of them. However, if tax advisors exercise their professional privilege for purposes of this Regime, they must communicate this situation to the relevant taxpayer through the Tax Authorities’ website, “TPIR Regime”, “Professional Secrecy” option. Taxpayers may relieve the tax advisor from such secrecy for a particular case or permanently, through the same webservice.

The following tax planning are subject to this regime:

1. National Tax Planning – broadly defined by article 3 as any agreement, scheme, plan and any other action resulting in a tax advantage or any other benefit in favor of the taxpayers involved, carried out within Argentina and related to National Taxes and/or Informative Regime.

2. International Tax Planning – broadly defined by article 4 as any agreement, scheme, plan and any other action resulting in a tax advantage or any other benefit in favor of the taxpayers involved, in which Argentina and one or more foreign jurisdictions are involved.

Among other specific examples, this General Resolutions states:

ii. Taking advantage from the asymmetries of the tax legislation of two or more jurisdictions with respect to tax treatment or characterization given to an entity, or contract, or financial instrument, aimed at a tax advantage or any other benefit;

iii. Individuals, undivided estates, entity, fund, foundation, or any other foreign entity or legal instrument with double tax residence;

iv. Any person with inherent rights to the beneficiary, fiduciary, or similar, of trusts or similar foreign structures, or in foreign private institutions, or any other similar foreign patrimony of affection;

v.specifically included in the microsite “Tax Planning Informative Regime”.

3. Tax Advantage – defined by article 5 as any direct or indirect decrease of the taxable base of the taxpayers and/or related parties, as well as the lack of compliance with the informative regimes.

This act establishes the following deadlines:

a. National Tax Planning: until the last business day of the following month after the one in which the tax year, in which the tax planning was implemented, ended.

b. International Tax Planning: within 10 days after the implementation started.

c. General Resolution No. 4838/2020 establishes that tax planning included within this regime implemented between January 1^st, 2019 and until October 20^th, 2020, or implemented prior to January 1^st, 2019 but continuing by October 21^st, 2020, must be reported until January 29^th, 2021.

The obliged person shall be considered compliant with this regime when a thorough description of the (i) relevant facts, (ii) details about the parties involved, (iii) elements of the transaction, (iv) description of the tax planning, and the (v) manner in which they represent a tax advantage or benefit in favor of any of the parties involved, and applicable domestic and foreign regulations analysis, are timely filed.

The required information must be filed according to the amounts, conditions and requirements established by the microsite “Tax Planning Informative Regime” at the National Tax Authorities’ website and same shall be sent electronically.

The tax planning information provided due to this regime shall be subject to Information Exchange with the jurisdictions that may have signed the Information Exchange Agreement with Argentina.

At GTU, we will keep monitoring these matters closely and will provide you with the latest information through our GTU LATAM Daily Report.