Argentina: new reporting regime for international transaction

On 27 December 2022, the Argentine Tax Authority (Administración Federal de Ingresos Públicos, AFIP) published Resolution No. 5306/2022 'Regimen de Informacion complementario de operaciones internacionales' (RICOI) in the Official Gazette, which establishes a new informative regime for certain international transactions.
 
The purpose of RICOI is to obtain information on international transactions for the effective and efficient assessment and management of international tax compliance risks.
 

Reporting parties

Legal entities registered in Argentina, permanent establishments of foreign legal entities, trusts created in Argentina and sole proprietorships registered in Argentina fall under the RICOI regime.
Reporting entities are obliged to report transactions with related parties indicated as a continuation:
 
a) Legal entities, permanent establishments, trusts or equivalent figures incorporated, domiciled or located abroad;

b) Persons domiciled, incorporated or located in non-cooperating or low- or no-tax jurisdictions even if transactions are carried out through permanent establishments abroad.

The RICOI regime stipulates that companies classified as Micro, Small or Medium Enterprises (Tramo I y II Resolución 220 del 12 de abril de 2019) will be exempt from reporting under RICOI.

Reportable international transactions

The following international transactions must be reported if one or more of the following situations arise:
a)  Cases involving permanent establishments in Argentina, including the following:
i.  negotiation of the basic elements of contracts and their conclusion in Argentina, but their execution takes place abroad;

ii. Argentine entities acting exclusively or almost exclusively on behalf of related foreign companies;

iii.    a foreign entity performs a project, construction, assembly or installation, or related supervisory activities, and carries out these activities in the country through the successive execution of contracts, concluded alone or through one or more related parties, all relating to the same activity and the same project, the duration of which taken together exceeds six months.

b)  A transaction that results in double international non-taxation;

c)  The transfer of benefits to other jurisdictions arising from mismatches in the treatment or qualification of an entity, agreement, or financial instrument under the laws of two or more jurisdictions;

d)  Any form of agreement, scheme or plan that has the effect of excluding one or more persons, funds or assets from reporting or being reported under the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) or FATCA.
 
The following operations, among others, are considered to be included:

-   the use of an account, product or investment which is not, or purports not to be, a financial account, but which has characteristics that are substantially similar;

-   transfer of money and/or financial assets held in a financial account to an institution not required to declare or to a jurisdiction that does not exchange information under the CRS or FATCA with at least one of the jurisdictions of tax residence of a declarable person under the CRS;

-   transfer of money and/or financial assets held in a financial account, to an account not subject to reporting under the CRS;

-   provide incomplete information in relation to any of the following:
 
1.  account holder and/or control person;

2.  all jurisdictions of tax residence of the account holder and/or control person.

-   classify a payment made for the benefit of an account holder or control person as undeclared income within the meaning of the CRS.
 
e)  Corporate restructuring that has the effect of falling outside the scope of the international country-by-country reporting regime;

f)  Disposal of assets or rights through the sale of foreign companies that directly or indirectly own Argentine companies or assets;

g)  Concessions for the exploitation of any activity involving the transfer of capital;

h)  An international leasing transaction is entered into, resulting in a financial loan;

i)  Payments are made by a non-profit organisation to a foreign organisation;

j)  When a tax benefit is obtained as a result of one of the following:

i.  payments of interconnected transactions that return wholly or partly to the person who made them or to any of its partners, shareholders or related parties;

ii. an international transaction involving one or more entities and/or legal entities that do not have tax personality in the jurisdiction in which they are incorporated, domiciled or located, and whose income is directly attributed to their shareholders, members, participants, owners, controllers or beneficiaries;

iii.    mechanisms that generate uncertainty with respect to the ownership of an asset and allow taxpayers in different jurisdictions to benefit from a tax deduction for the depreciation of the same asset or to claim double taxation with respect to the same asset;

iv. deductible cross-border payments made to members of the same multinational group who are not resident for tax purposes in any jurisdiction.

Content of the information to be transmitted

Reporting entities must provide the following information for each international transaction subject to reporting:

1.  International Transactions: you must select the corresponding option(s) according to the transactions described above, linking each of them to the subject(s) indicated in the next point;
 
2.  Identifying data of the parties involved in international transactions: if applicable, the full name or designation of the counterparty(ies) involved in the international transaction(s) should be provided (e.g. details of the contractor, foreign company, financial or non-financial entity; the NIF, domicile, country of tax residence and jurisdictions involved in the transaction, etc.).

Deadlines and submission methods

International transactions carried out during the tax period must be reported on the due date of the tax return.
 
The information must be submitted by accessing with a Tax Code, with security level 3 or higher, the agency's website (https://www.afip.gob.ar) at the service called 'Régimen de Información Complementaria de Operaciones Internacionales' (Complementary Information Regime for International Transactions).


General Provisions

Failure to comply with all or part of RICOI's obligations shall give rise to the application of the sanctions provided for in the Tax Procedure Law No. 11,683 of 1998, as amended.
The provisions set forth in RICOI came into force on the day of its publication in the Official Journal, 27 December 2022, and apply for the filing of information corresponding to the tax years ending on or after 01 August 2022.
 

Fidinam & Partners

This article, also published in the April 2023 Newsletter by Fidinam & Partners, is edited by Adela Muniz, Head of the Family Office Competence Center.

Read all the other articles Fidinam & Partners' April 2023 Newsletter.

Click here to ask specific questions on the subject or to request an advice.

Don't miss the updates: subscribe to the newsletter!