AFIP to Back Creation of A Centralized Crypto Report System to Control Avoidance and Evasion

The Administración Federal de Ingresos Públicos (AFIP), the Argentinian tax agency, is supporting the creation of a centralized system that serves as a registry for cryptocurrency holders. 

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AFIP wants to advance its efficiency in the collection of crypto-related taxes. The organization is making changes to include the digital assets in the current automatic exchange data system operated by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). 

The head of the AFIP, Mercedes Marco del Pont, stated at an event that:"It is necessary to include electronic money, digital currencies and crypto assets in international information exchange mechanisms to prevent them from becoming instruments that facilitate evasion."

Furthermore, Marco del Pont also explained the recent experience of the regulator when tackling tax evasion on taxpayers that did not possess bank accounts or assets in the country. The regulator managed to exploit the exchange of information with other countries to gain access to an important part of these funds.

The Argentinian Tax Office managed to include digital wallets, that is, funds that users had stored on fintech platforms, as part of the assets that can be seized to pay for tax debt. This measure allowed the organization to act in more than 5,000 cases where taxpayers did not have any other properties to seize. This is possible because the organization receives reports from fintech companies about the holdings of their customers.

On these actions, Marco del Pont stated:"We deepened the recovery of the capacities of the State in matters of control to control avoidance and evasion with the focus on increasing the contribution to the collection of the sectors with the greatest taxpaying capacity."

The Argentinian government is trying to raise funds to pay off the debt it has with the International Monetary Fund, and one of its strategies is to implement new tax collection methods. In March, the organization started scrutinizing the movements of cryptocurrency traders directly, sending requirements to some to report their crypto movements. Also, a law project that seeks to tax the holdings that Argentinians have around the world, including cryptocurrencies, was presented to the Senate earlier this month.