Data from Argentine accounts in the US will not arrive –if the financial exchange agreement enters into force on January 1– before the end of 2024. Even, due to some pending procedures, everything might be delayed for another year. If all goes well, in September 2024 an information package will arrive with the identification of account holders (a natural person), financial institutions, gross amounts of interest, dividends and other income -balances will not be specified- from American sources received by Argentine residents and deposited in US accounts.
The Treasury Department ended the mystery Tuesday followingnoon, when he published on his page the fine print of the IGA 1A (for Intergovernmental Agreement) signed between Argentina and the US.
Such a temporary definition will complicate the success of the laundering that the Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, sought to send to Congress and wanted to put it into effect in 2023. That capital outsourcing project, however, had already entered into limbo due to an ongoing conflict of powers as a consequence of the war that Cristina Kirchner is facing once morest the Court. That battle of the vice president blew up all the bridges in Parliament and is also affecting the daily work of the Judiciary in the midst of a complex economic panorama that these days is hidden behind the intractable dribbling of Lionel Messi.
The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (Fatca) was signed in 2010, but entered into force in 2014. The United States already has agreements within the framework of this information exchange law with 114 countries, counting the one sealed with Argentina at the beginning of last week. This agreement is universal and does not include particularities by country. It is reciprocal and also it is not retroactive (it will not include the information of 2022, despite the fact that some experts recall that the Tax Information Exchange Agreements signed in December 2016, the previous and required step for an IGA 1A).
For this reason, experts in managment patromonial were filled with work and inquiries in recent weeks. They also tell the government that some US banks in Miami open on Saturdays to evacuate their clients’ fears and would even offer Argentine citizens and Paraguayan passports to interested parties. In the Ministry of Economy they affirm that there are already conversations with the Paraguayan Executive on the subject.
Massa achieved a small victory. Months ago, no one seriously believed that the US would close an IGA 1A with the Government. That was pure management of the minister. Days ago, it was doubted that the agreement had actually been signed. The papers are on their way to Washington. However, the temporal and practical scope is limited. It will only include information from form 1042-s (informative return submitted by financial institutions to the IRS and in which the US source income received by non-residents is declared) and nothing from the W8, as suggested.
All states, as with any federal country, are included in the signed agreement. Only American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands are excluded, because they do not have the same relationship as the other 50 states to the IRS (Internal Revenue Service or the American AFIP).
The computer safeguards for the IGA 1A to enter into force were complied with by the AFIP following a US visit in 2019. Only a few bureaucratic steps are missing: a resolution of the AFIP and the notification – it does not require approval – to the US Congress. The translations that are being worked on will not be a problem.
While these details are slowly coming to light, Cristinista’s maneuver to evade the Court’s ruling in relation to the composition of the Judicial Council, added to the “management” of Cecilia Moreau –who answers to Massa and Cristina Kirchner– in the last session broke the dialogue in the Chamber of Deputies. “They broke everything” says an opposition deputy. After the match between Argentina and Croatia, in Together for Change the legislative agenda was reviewed. “What we see is that the Frente de Todos does not know how to start,” he said. “They want to meet as if nothing had happened and we want another agenda,” he added.
“We are not here to accompany money laundering”, said the legislator of Together for Change. However, not all of them are so forceful. Close to Massa, accustomed to difficult negotiations in Congress, they are more optimistic. “He’s going out” They say while waiting for the inflation data that will be released tomorrow. In the corridors of the fifth floor of the Ministry of Economy they waited for these hours a better number than the Buenos Aires price index, which marked 5.8% for November. In addition, the Government announced two limited bonds for the end of the year. A pyrrhic victory for President Alberto Fernández over the vice president, who was asking for a fixed sum. You can add to the “achievements” of these three years celebrated today.
The war once morest the Court also unleashed a silent labor conflict drowned out by the cries of Argentine success in the World Cup. The Government is withholding a batch of funds to pay the fourth tranche of a salary agreement already sealed with the courts. The workers began a 60-hour strike that might be extended -another 60 hours- next week. “We are hostages of conflicts between the national government and the Supreme Court,” said Julio Piumato. Everything is stuck in Juan Manzur’s office. They look particularly at Juan Manuel Olmos.
While Massa obtained more net financing following a month of drought, the lack of water complicates the provision of dollars in the medium term. A report that will be published in the next few hours by the economist Salvador Di Stefano together with the climatologist Leo Debenedictis affirms that the “strong girl” climatic events were the prelude to the crisis of the years 1976, 1989, 2001, 2008 and 2018.
The last three years were “girls” in Argentina and no one dares to predict what will happen in 2023, but a tough year is anticipated for the field. The drought changed the government of Mauricio Macri in 2018. Fernando De la Rúa had three years as a “girl”. It is a future problem for all politics: out of 25 “girl” events, seven occurred in the last 13 years. This is a situation that is not observed in the rest of the historical series from 1950 to date.
