The Budget and Finance Commission of the Chamber of Deputies began this Wednesday the analysis of the bill sent by the Executive Branch with which it seeks to create a simplified regime for small technological contributors and a specific exchange regime, with the presence of officials of the Ministry of Economy and the Federal Administration of Public Revenues (AFIP).
In the committee meeting – chaired by the pro-government legislator Carlos Heller – were the Undersecretary of Financing, Eduardo Kutner; the Undersecretary of Public Revenue, Claudia Balestrini; and the deputy director of General Collection of the AFIP, José Bianchi, who They presented the main characteristics of the initiative.
The deputies of Together for Change that make up the commission entered the meeting room after the ruling party achieved the necessary quorum, within the framework of its parliamentary strategy of not facilitating the treatment of projects until the Frente de Todos desists from advancing in the request for impeachment of the four members of the Court Supreme Justice.
At the beginning of the presentations, Kutner assured that the initiative “will not increase the brain drain, but seeks to add them; it seeks that all unregistered workers can be incorporated into the tax system; it is compatible with the general and monotributo regime, it is a measure that It has no fiscal cost and is an incentive to be able to acquire assets that can be registered in the country”.
“It is designed with the federal spirit since the provinces are invited to join; it creates a voluntary adhesion tax regime and an exchange regime; which is aimed at small taxpayers who carry out knowledge economy tasks,” he added.
“This bill itself is part of a series of measures and strategies that the Government has through the Economy to generate employment and foreign currency income, among others”Kutner summed up.
In his turn, Balestrini emphasized that the regime will be “optional” and that “yes or yes it has to be for an export of services.”
“The technical foundations are based on the export of services and the inclusion of competitors in electronic sports, which is a very attractive universe and originates taxpayers who will be able to join the formal economy,” Balestrini stressed.
When the subject joins Monotech, the AFIP “will inform the Central Bank so that it can access the benefits,” said the official, who specified: “This is not a patch to the monotax law, what we want is for foreign currency to enter the country or prevent those who receive income from moving their homes to a neighboring country”added the official.
Finally, Bianchi assured that “this project brings transparency in the use of funds, we believe that with the update of this Monotech we will obtain electronic payments, a mechanism that leads to billing, thus generating a secondary effect on other taxpayers.”
“The taxpayer can change his category at any time of the year. There is daily information that passes from AFIP to the Central Bank, for this reason automaticity is contemplated in this process,” he clarified.
The AFIP official also said that the system will have “benefits in terms of transparency in the use of funds” and that currently, since it does not have a specific regime, “what they can do -the subjects that export these services- is collect it in cash, and what ends up happening is that it is not invoiced”.
At the time of the inquiries, the Deputy Alejandro Cacace, from Evolución Radical, and Pedro Galimberti, from the UCRexpressed their concerns about the issue of gender equality and women’s income and about the case of gamers under 16 years of age.
In this regard, officials said that “both issues” are covered in the bill.
In turn, the Mendoza Lisandro Nieri (UCR) He requested that the business chambers of the sector be invited to an upcoming meeting of the commission to present their points of view and warned that “there are companies that will not be reached by this project” by noting that the initiative “contemplates a turnover of up to 30,000 dollars, or about 12 million pesos a year”.
Faced with this observation, Balestrini said that Monotech “contemplates the human person, not companies, and that is why it has this scope. There have already been other policies for companies, even with benefits, such as the Knowledge Economy Law.”
By the end of the meeting, the President of the bloc of representatives of the Frente de Todos, Germán Martínez, maintained that “today we could have come to sign the ruling, and we did not because we thought it was going to be an important meeting from the outset.”
“It may be that some of the things that were discussed here will be incorporated into the text of the project; and that next week, or when the Secretary of Knowledge Economy Ariel Sujarchuk comes, these proposals can be discussed,” Martínez completed. .
Details about the technological monotribute
The technological monotribute aims to help retain trained and trained talent in Argentina in the field of software and associated technologieseven though its immediate effect will be to formalize income in foreign currency for exported services.
The retention in Argentina of human resources specially trained in software development is one of the most relevant concerns in the sector, since the demand for professionals for this activity is global.
The project creates a technological monotribute (Monotech) for professionals who bill their knowledge-based services and for those who “participate in e-sports competitions (professional level)”.
In this way, search avoid the informality of workers who carry out tasks abroadas well as increasing the collection of foreign exchange for unregistered export services.
The measure includes the exchange benefit of not liquidating currencies and favors small exporters of knowledge-based services/e-gamers (whether autonomous or small groups)indicated from the Knowledge Economy Secretariat.
The draft of the new tax scheme proposes 3 categories of annual income: up to US$10,000, up to US$20,000 and up to US$30,000
Each category is established in accordance with the income ceiling and the integrated amount corresponding to each of them that will be paid, including income tax, social work and retirement contributions- and the amount to be paid corresponds to the categories established in the Regime D, F and H, they specified.
The project considers that the monotributo is “compatible with the General regime (which is the one registered in VAT, Earnings and Self-Employed), with the Simplified regime (monotribute) and employees in a dependency relationship, provided that the registration is for developing a different activity to that reached by the Monotech”.
It specifies that the monotributistas, in addition to the amount that they must pay for their category, must pay for Monotech the tax component that corresponds to the highest categories of the monotributo.
If they are categorized in I, J and K, they must pay the integrated tax amount corresponding to each of those categories.
