The General Directorate of Customs (DGA) fined a Pirelli Group company US$ 20 million for overinvoicing of imports, the agency reported Thursday.
“It was a overbilling of approximately 30%on average”, in the imports that Prometeon Tire Group of Argentina SAU (of the Pirelli Group) made in the period 2020-2022, as stated.
Customs verified that, in effect, there were differences between a 15.15% and 297.71% regarding the values declared by the importing firm in Argentina, indicated from the DGA.
In this regard, they also specified that although the tires entered directly from Brazil, billing was triangulated by appealing to a third operator based in Italy, from the same economic group as the Argentine importer, since “in all cases, the tires They were sent directly from Brazil to Argentina”.
“The invoicing of the operations was triangulated with a commercial trader domiciled in Milano, Italy –Prometeon Tire Group SRL, belonging to the same economic group as the Argentine subsidiary,” they explained.
They also indicated that “given that the operation was implemented under a scheme of successive sales between related companies, it is presumed that the overpricing would have had the objective of obtaining dollars at official price, which is extremely harmful for the economy of the country in which current situation”.
In this regard, the director of the DGA, Guillermo Michel, stated: “Our task is to take care of the dollars to support the production and work of the Argentines; We are not going to allow irregular mechanisms to be used to covertly transfer foreign currency abroad.”
For his part, the head of the Federal Administration of Public Revenues (AFIP), Carlos Castagneto, assured that the agency “will adjust the Income Tax on the company in view of the hollowing that it carried out on its tax base by overbilling its costs of import”.
