AFIP, Argentina’s tax agency, supports the creation of a centralized system that serves as a registry for cryptocurrency holders. According to statements by its leader, this would make it easier for tax agencies around the world to fight tax evasion. The organization has previously used financial information to collect taxes from Argentinian users with overseas bank accounts.
Argentina Tax Agency Supports Creation of Crypto Holder Registry
AFIP, which is Argentina’s national tax collection agency, wants to advance its efficiency in collecting crypto-related taxes. In this sense, the organization has expressed its public support for the creation of a registry of cryptocurrency holders, making changes to include digital assets in the current system of automatic data exchange managed by the Organization. Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The boss of AFIP, Mercedes Marco del Pont, declared at an event that:
It is necessary to include electronic money, digital currencies and cryptographic assets in international information exchange mechanisms to prevent them from becoming instruments facilitating evasion.
In addition, Marco del Pont also explained the regulator’s recent experience in combating tax evasion by taxpayers who do not have bank accounts or assets in the country. The regulator has managed to exploit the exchange of information with other countries to access a significant part of these funds.
AFIP strengthens controls
Argentina’s tax authority managed to include digital wallets, i.e. funds that users had stored on fintech platforms, among the assets that can be seized to pay the tax debt. This measure enabled the organization to intervene in more than 5,000 files where taxpayers had no other assets to seize. This is possible because the organization receives reports from fintech companies about their clients’ holdings.
Of these actions, Marco del Pont said:
We have deepened the recovery of the State’s control capacities to fight against evasion and fraud, emphasizing the increase in the contribution to the recovery of sectors with greater contributory capacity.
The Argentine government is trying to raise funds to pay off its debt with the International Monetary Fund, and one of its strategies is to implement new methods of tax collection. In March, the organization began looking directly at the movements of cryptocurrency traders, sending some requirements to report their cryptocurrency movements. Additionally, a bill to tax assets Argentines hold around the world, including cryptocurrencies, was introduced in the Senate earlier this month.
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