The asset regularization operation launched by Javier Milei’s government was some steps below which was closed in March 2017, during the government of Mauricio Macri. Although it can also be considered successful.
The 2017 money laundering, called “Fiscal Sincerity and Historical Reparation for Retirees”, achieved the regularization of assets by $116.8 billion and of that total Almost 10%, about US$ 9,522 million, went to the AFIP, because unlike the 2024 laundering, which seeks reinforce reservesthat time the taxpayer had to pay a penalty equivalent to 10% of what he laundered, whether the money was repatriated or deposited abroad.
Now the AFIP will collect littlebecause whitewashing can be free under certain conditions (regularize up to $100,000 or a higher amount, as long as it is frozen (in the case of liquid money) until December 2025. There are exceptions, such as applying the money to the purchase of a property or a car.
The current authorities understood that money laundering should target expand the taxpayer base and not to generate extra tax revenue of money for the AFIP. What’s more, officials said that it is desirable that the laundered dollars be used for productive activity or financial investments. There was some of that: dollar deposits grew very strongly and companies took the opportunity to take out loans in dollars at low interest rates. The Central Bank managed to rebuild reserves in this way, because the companies take the credits and liquidate them.
Other dollars went to financial investments because those who laundered deposited their dollars in banks and then transferred them to special investment accounts to buy financial assets from there. These are investments that will not be able to leave the “CERA” world until the end of 2025.
The result of the laundering of the Macri Government was this:
Assets worth US$116.8 billion were laundered, equivalent to 1.5% of the then GDP. 54% of the laundered funds remained outside the country, and the remaining 46% were repatriated or were already in the country.
They introduced themselves 254,000 sworn statementsand 96% corresponded to natural persons
This amount far exceeded the values obtained from the launderings that closed in 2009 and 2015 (US$ 4,692 million and US$ 2,595 million, respectively).
Besides, 167,000 real estate properties were regularized110,000 came clean in Argentina, and 57,000 were whitewashed abroad. The shocking thing about that whitewashing is that The tax base of Personal Assets was doubled.
The black pearl of Macri’s money laundering is that a week after its closure, the list with the main contributors who had entered into the money laundering was made public in a media outlet.