The base market scenario is that Javier Milei will seek to cross the legislative elections with currency controls and without devaluation: Will he be able to? That match is played on the court of the dollars. He money laundering The process that began at the end of July is going slowly, so the Government does not rule out extending the deadline for the first stage. The Central Bank has bought reserves again due to lower demand from the energy sector. And because of the help from the PAIS tax?
“Teenage romance” is how a leading consultant for companies and high net worth individuals defined the beginning of the money laundering process. Why? “There is a lot of talk but little action is taken“, an accountant who worked on such regimes during different administrations joked in conversation with this newspaper.
“The formalization of the entry into money laundering is not yet enabled. It will begin on October 7, the only concrete information that exists is the registration of the opening of special accounts to make deposits,” he explained to Scope Marcelo Rodriguez, CEO of MR Consultants.
According to various sources in the sector, comes very slowly. There is talk of operational problems. Limitations and obstacles from banks, which for example do not allow clients to deposit more than once, or provide inaccurate information. Some even point to disagreements with brokers for these reasons.
The peculiarity of this money laundering is that Congress gave the Executive the power to postpone the deadlines, something that the Government does not rule out, taking into account that the greatest benefits are concentrated in the first stage and those who do not receive it there, probably will not do so later.
The stakes are high. Caputo gave up income by reducing the Personal Property tax rates to make the regime more attractive and recover them by thickening the base. Furthermore, it is expected that it will serve to increase gross reserves, although the impact on net reserves, which remain largely in negative territory, would be very limited and linked exclusively to revenue collection.
BCRA reserves: an aid called PAIS Tax
After a July that showed a negative balance, the Central Bank bought dollars again. Although it did so at a very different pace than at the beginning of the year, during August it has accumulated more than US$500 million in the successive rounds.
The latest report from Investing in the Stock Market (IEB) asks What is the reason for this change in trend?. He argues that there was less demand from the energy sector, whose payments are made immediately, and explains that a “substantial improvement in exports” was observed.
However, IEB raises an additional hypothesis, that “the future reduction of the PAIS Tax rate could be influencing This increased pace of purchases”The calculation is simple: importers who can postpone their purchases abroad will face a rate of 7.5% compared to the current 17.5%, which creates an incentive to move operations to September.
This would have generated in recent weeks a relief in the reserves of the BCRA, the data that everyone looks at to know how long this exchange rate scheme holds. Especially because, as it says In the last report of 1816, the Government, in Machiavelli mode, entered into its “the end justifies the shackles” mode.
Source: Ambito
