Lucia Salinas
07/09/2020 - 19:37
- Clarín.com
- Politics
With the signature of President Alberto Fernández, the Chief of Cabinet Santiago Cafiero and the Minister of Economy, Martín Guzmán, the bill of fiscal moratorium entered the Congress on Tuesday. Among the changes posed by the tax pardon, the ban would be removed so that companies with certain legal cases against them can avail themselves of a payment plan to settle their debts with the treasury. Cristóbal López, the owners of OCA and the contractor K Lázaro Báez could benefit from the regulations. In the respective bankruptcy processes of their firms, they owe the State multimillion-dollar figures.
The government's objective with the new moratorium on the coronavirus crisis is to prevent companies that cannot pay taxes from going into default and ending up in a possible bankruptcy. It is an incentive in the midst of the financial crisis, but through a project that modifies some articles that could end up favoring the owner of the oil company Oil, the holders of the OCA mail and, to a lesser extent, Báez.
The situation of the owner of the Indalo Group is the most intricate. The legislative project intends to modify, among others, article 16 of the current law, according to which companies "declared bankrupt, in respect of which the continuity of exploitation has not been provided for, are excluded from any moratorium."
Oil Combustibles, the oil firm of Cristóbal López and Fabián De Sousa, has been in bankruptcy since June 2018. Its main creditor is the AFIP. The firm was denounced during the administration of Alberto Abad for not having paid during the government of Cristina Kirchner the Tax on the Transfer of Fuels (ITC), which withheld the users of Oil service stations. For López, there would be a specific benefit, since the ruling project modifies the eighth article, which prevented the ITC from including debt in the moratorium. If approved, that can be included, and although Oil is no longer operational because its main assets were auctioned off in the context of the contest, "the debt generated with the treasury is due to that tax on time," said a source in the file.
With the oil company in bankruptcy, thinking of a moratorium to pay off its debt was unthinkable. But the project opens up a possibility, because an exception is added to that article: those companies or companies that are in bankruptcy may access the tax benefit , and for them it imposes requirements that are exclusive. Oil could provisionally enter a possible moratorium, if it managed to conclude its bankruptcy within a period of 90. To do so, it requires the agreement of at least two thirds of its creditors. In the case of Oil, the main victim is AFIP itself.
Then, the Lopez oil company that recently denounced the macrista AFIP as a "hostile creditor" -that is to say, it blames the collecting agency for leading its company to bankruptcy- could find in this project a window to resolve the situation with its main creditor.
Another discussion opens at this point. The trial focuses on the period from May 2013 to August 2015. In that period, the accumulated debt - according to official expertise - was 4.2 billion pesos, and the calculated interest amounts to just over 6 billion. For this reason, the AFIP of the previous administration was going to claim 10,000 million pesos for the unpaid ITC.
Cristóbal López maintains that as of December 2015 they only owed 600 million pesos, because Oil had availed itself of two payment facility plans granted by the controversial Article 32, a discretionary power of the Administrator of the AFIP. However, "it does not include the other plans that are the subject of the investigation," judicial sources explained.
So, the debt for which López could avail himself of a possible moratorium is another question. Consulted by Clarín , from their environment they indicated that in the event "the measure will be analyzed, but it is convenient to accept the moratorium." This implies a significant reduction in interest.
But the owner of the Indalo Group would not be the only one to benefit from the official project. In April 2019, Judge Pablo Tejada decreed the bankruptcy of OCA SA, for a debt of 7,000 million pesos, the majority of which corresponds to unpaid balances with the AFIP. The private post, in which Hugo Moyano has interests, could benefit from a moratorium on that debt.
To a lesser extent, Lázaro Báez could also benefit his firm Austral Construcciones. The company has been in bankruptcy for two years and its biggest debt is not with the AFIP, but it has prosecutions for tax evasion and undue retention of employer contributions. "If he enters a moratorium, the criminal action in such cases will be extinguished," judicial sources indicated.
During the AFIP macrista administration under Leandro Cucciolli, a legal claim was also initiated in the context of the bankruptcy. According to the agency's resolution, this claim is for 2,880,124,946 pesos. Two months ago, the current administration, led by Mercedes Marcó del Pont, confirmed that it wanted to collect that debt that the Báez firm maintains with the State.
When the AFIP reiterated the claim before the Austral bankruptcy judge, Gigy Traynor, the trustees appointed by the courts to carry out the liquidation process were asked to rule on it. In the brief they explained that the treasury was claiming that amount above 2,800 million in the framework of a Law that contemplates important benefits if the payment is made in cash.
But there was no money to access that discount, nor to pay anything. The trustees responded that "the present bankruptcy is not in a position to be able to face the payment of said sums, that is, the credit already verified in favor of the treasury and that corresponding to the amounts that are also in the process of being determined."
