There will be no automatic exchange of financial information with the US.

On August 31, the tax collection agency of the United States of America (IRS) issued Resolution RP 2018/36, which updates with application from January 2019 two country listings for the purposes of the report of certain financial operations. It is an annual reporting obligation for cases of deposit of interests paid by US financial institutions to not resident subjects in that jurisdiction, residing in any of the countries listed in any of the lists in question.

The first list includes the countries that signed a "classic" exchange of information agreement with the United States, under which the United States is authorized to provide and receive financial information (either within the framework of an agreement to avoid double taxation or of a specific bilateral agreement for the exchange of information "upon request").

For its part, the second list includes the countries with which the United States is authorized to carry out an "automatic" exchange of financial information. Among several other jurisdictions, this list includes some countries in the region such as Brazil, Colombia and Mexico.

Argentina - which at the moment was not included in this legislation - was incorporated into the first list, which confirms that between the United States and Argentina there is currently no legal instrument that enables both jurisdictions to exchange information of the "automatic" type.

Indeed, in December 2016, Argentina and the United States signed a bilateral agreement for the exchange of tax information, which enables tax authorities to request information on their respective taxpayers, and establishes the necessary procedures to carry out such requirements. Within the framework of such an agreement, the information to be exchanged (held by financial institutions or persons acting in representative or fiduciary capacity, among others) must always be "upon request" and in specific cases.

Under guidelines that the United States had already followed in other agreements (for example, in those subscribed with the Cayman Islands and the Mauritius Islands), although this agreement contains information exchange clauses in "automatic" and "spontaneous" mode, they do not result operational as they require additional agreements, which specify the information to be exchanged and the procedures to be followed for such purposes. In effect, this agreement does not constitute an "Intergovernmental Agreement" type 1 (IGA-1), thus differentiating itself from those agreements that -in the framework of the "Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act" (FATCA) - the United States signed with other countries in order to exchange information on massive, routine and "automatic" way.

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