Milei eases tax evasion rules to draw out 'mattress dollars'

BUENOS AIRES

Argentine President Javier Milei has signed into law a so-called "tax innocence" bill, which aims to encourage people to bank dollars stashed under mattresses or in offshore accounts by forgiving a degree of tax evasion.

Over years of high inflation and currency controls, Argentines traded their battered pesos for dollars, which they often hoarded at home, in cash.

The government estimates Argentines are sitting on some $251 billion in what are commonly called "mattress dollars" — six times the Central Bank's reserves which stood at $41 billion on Dec. 30.

Milei has been on a mission to get citizens to bank their greenbacks to help the state meet foreign debt payments totalling $19 billion this year.

To lure deposits, Congress in December voted to raise 66-fold the amount for which citizens can face prosecution for tax evasion to the equivalent of $70,000 per fiscal year.

The law also reduces the statute of limitations — the number of years after an alleged offense during which a person can be held liable — for financial crimes and creates a new regime which exempts taxpayers from having to report changes in their net worth.

Economy Minister Luis Caputo urged banks to immediately accept the deposits from people registered under the forgiveness regime.

He advised citizens to deposit their money in the state-owned Banco Nacion if private banks asked too many questions about the provenance of the funds.

Opposition leaders, however, warned that the initiative would turn Argentina into a money laundering mecca.

"It transforms us into a haven for laundering dirty money and of laundering by drug traffickers," Jorge Taiana, a center-left opposition congressman, said on X.