MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Argentines hold at least 232.5bn dollars overseas, according to stats office Indec
Finance minister Alfonso Prat Gay said that there's “no official estimate” of how much money can take advantage of the bill, because it involves “hidden funds” 
The sum is a crucial reference for when Argentina begins to implement the Capital repatriation bill recently passed by congress geared to attract unregistered assets 
The minister pointed out that an international tax sharing agreement that begins in 2017 will make it more difficult for Argentines to continue hiding funds abroad Argentines held 232.5 billion dollars overseas in 2015, almost 10bn dollars over the previous year, according to the latest report from the country's official Indec stats office. The report, “International Investment position” is a financial balance account of Argentina with the rest of the world and records the market value of Argentine residents external assets and liabilities.
The sum is a crucial reference for when Argentina begins to implement the Capital repatriation bill recently passed by congress and is geared to attract unregistered assets overseas under the scheme of a tax amnesty.
Finance minister Alfonso Prat Gay said that there's “no official estimate” of how much money can take advantage of the bill, because it involves “hidden funds”, and it's hard to estimate, but “expectations are great because it's going to be something big”.
The funds will pay a tax of zero percent to 15% depending on the amount and when they are brought back into the country, Prat Gay said. However the minister also pointed out that an international tax sharing agreement that begins in 2017 will make it much more difficult for Argentines to continue hiding funds abroad
The tax amnesty “is the first that rewards those who were up-to-date,” Prat-Gay said. “We’re offering this last opportunity because from January the tax agency will have all the instruments it needs to search for that money in any part of the world.”
Argentina will hope to emulate Chile, where a similar amnesty last year collected US$ 1.5 billion in revenue, more than 10 times the amount forecast. Brazil started its own similar plan last month.
The government hopes to attract about US$20 billion from the tax amnesty, local media reported, citing government officials it didn’t identify. Argentines will be able to declare their money without bringing it into the country.
People can also comply with the amnesty by investing in Argentine Treasury bonds or they can make long-term investments in infrastructure projects, housing, mortgages or small- and medium-sized businesses, according to the statement.
The bonds on offer will be either a three-year instrument that pays no interest or a six-year bond that pays 5% after the fourth year.
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Read all commentsSince Argentina's history is one of theft of the holdings of its residents and the forced conversion of dollars into worthless pesos, keeping one's resources outside of Argentina is the only reasonable thing that can be done with it.
Jul 13th, 2016 - 02:09 pm 0Article from 2012:
“....pesification – a word guaranteed to send shivers down the spines of Argentines who remember all too well how their decade-long dollar peg was ditched after the country’s $100bn default in 2001, forcing a return to pesos amid a brutal devaluation....”
The story shows how, when most Argentines struggle to make ends meet, a small number of them do have the capacity to take assets abroad, flouting the law and evading taxes. (See today's MP article on how HSBC got away after whistle-blower Hervé Falciani revealed its dealings helping drug money laundering--as well as the existence of over 4,000 secret accounts from Argentine citizens).
Jul 13th, 2016 - 07:33 pm 0Prat Gay's amnesty is just a reward to those people that offers the possibility of avoiding the sanctions and confiscation that the government will be able to apply in January 2017.
“... a small number of them do have the capacity to take assets abroad.....”
Jul 13th, 2016 - 08:55 pm 0No, it's a very large number. It's estimated that over 50,000 Argentine residents squirrel some of their money in foreign accounts or other holdings. There were more than 4000 involved in just one HSBC branch, and there are hundreds of institutions that facilitate safekeeping of dollars outside of Argentina. Dollars, because nobody in their sano juicio wants to keep an argie peso for very long.
An extraordinary number of Argentines know from past experience that an Argentine bank, ultimately controlled by Argentine governments, is historically a rather unsafe place to keep your money, lest it be forcibly converted to worthless pesos or simply embargoed on a political whim. That is why Argentine mattresses are full of dollars and not pesos, and why almost everyone who can do so, will move their hard-earned money to places where the historically incompetent but thieving Argentine governments will have to work a little harder to steal it.
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