AFIP Increased Interest Rates for Tax Arrears

The Federal Administration of Public Revenue (AFIP) will update the compensatory, punitive and repeat tax interest rates in February. Likewise, the tax collector announced that the rate will then be adjusted every two months. Through resolution 3/2024, published this Monday in the Official Gazette, the agency headed by Florencia Misrahi increased, as of February 1, the compensatory, punitive and repetition interest rates that the AFIP will charge and establishes a bimonthly update system. It is apparent from the preamble to the measure that the Ministry of the Economy adjusted the rates in order to encourage the timely cancellation of obligations and to prevent delinquent taxpayers from financing their activities by failing to pay taxes, by re-establishing, for that purpose, an automatic updating scheme. All in all, the new rates are still below inflation in December and January, but they are less negative for taxpayers. The resolution establishes that “the monthly compensatory interest rate, in force in each two months, will be equivalent to 1.3 times the monthly effective active rate of unsolicited current account overdrafts of the Banco de la Nación Argentina, in force on the twentieth (20th) day of the month immediately prior to the beginning of the aforementioned two-month period.” For his part, tax expert Sebastián Domínguez, CEO of SDC Asesores Tributarios, said that this would bring the compensatory interest rate to just over 15% per month. Meanwhile, the monthly punitive interest rate “will be equivalent to one point five (1.5) times the monthly effective active rate of unsolicited current account overdrafts of the Banco de la Nación Argentina, in force on the twentieth (20th) day of the month immediately prior to the beginning of the aforementioned two-month period.” This implies a rate of 18% per month, according to Dominguez’s calculations.Finally, the agency established that the interest rate applicable to the repetition of taxes and to the cases of refund, refund or compensation of taxes, “will be the effective monthly rate arising from considering the average of the rate published by the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic in the section “Interest rates for deposits with a 30-day term in financial institutions” for the period of thirty (30) days ending on the twentieth (20th) day of the month immediately preceding the beginning of the aforementioned two-month period.” In other words, the rate went from being fixed and less than 4% per month, to variable at what it currently represents at 9.1%. In this regard, Domínguez pointed out: “Undoubtedly, the rates in force until 31/01/2024 are negative real rates far from current inflation. This means that taxpayers, on many occasions, finance themselves through payment plans granted by the AFIP or even not pay at all since the cost of late payment is low, affecting public accounts.” “However, the current economic context and high tax pressure that exists in Argentina means that many taxpayers are unable to meet their obligations on time, and an almost threefold increase in compensatory interest can affect them even more,” the tax expert concluded.

Original source in Spanish