President Donald Trump gave his colleague Mauricio Macri the final nod to get the United States to move forward with negotiations to implement the tax information exchange agreement between the AFIP and the International Revenue Service (IRS).
Although they did not discuss possible dates, negotiations between the two tax collection agencies will now be able to move forward and speed up the implementation of the treaty..
Argentina had begun negotiating with the Obama administration since June 2016, the possibility of signing the data exchange agreement so that the agency managed by Alberto Abad can exchange the data of taxpayers who are based in both countries.
The Macri government considered this agreement to be fundamental to the success of the money laundering process, since it would have allowed the agency run by Alberto Abad to access, without the intervention of a judge, the list of physical assets (money, bonds, fixed-term deposits) or registrable assets (apartments, houses, offices, vehicles, boats, aircraft) of Argentines residing, or not, in that country.
Argentina had taken advantage of the good rapport between Presidents Macri and Obama, and moved forward with the request for a "double taxation and information exchange" agreement with the US, so that it can be applied once the money laundering has expired. On October 6, the then Minister of Finance and Treasury
Alfonso Prat Gay discussed this with US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew when he visited Buenos Aires. There Lew promised him that, upon his arrival in Washington, negotiations would be accelerated.
With the arrival of Trump, everything became complicated. But on March 17, Minister Nicolás Dujovne met with the Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, at the G-20 summit in Baden Baden, where he asked him about the agreement between the AFIP and the IRS, and received the endorsement of the American, but clarifying that he needed the endorsement of President Trump to reactivate the negotiations and be able to reach a bilateral treaty.
Argentina has already signed agreements with several countries and is in negotiations with the European Union, while the United States signs bilateral pacts when there is mutual interest.
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