The so-called Tax Innocence Law, promoted by the government of Javier Milei and regulated this year through the Customs Collection and Control Agency (ARCA), It was officially born with the argument of ending what the ruling party defined as a “fiscal persecution” on taxpayers, small businessmen and savers who kept money outside the formal system. The initiative significantly raised the minimum amounts to configure tax crimes, allowed the regularization of undeclared assets and created a Simplified Profits Regime that limits the ability of the collecting agency to review previous asset declarations.
According to the official explanation at that time, the objective was to encourage the formalization of savings and capital that remained outside the economic circuit. Its critics, on the other hand, maintain that the rule became a means of regularization for assets whose evolution had not been duly justified. After the scandal over the assets involving Manuel Adorni and his wifeBettina Angeletti, and the decision to subscribe to the regime of the collecting entity, the second position is the one with the greatest weight to date.
The content of the law raised the thresholds to consider the crimes of simple and aggravated evasion as configured, also generating the closure of hundreds of tax files that were covered by the principle of the most benign criminal law. At the same time, it enabled simplified mechanisms to declare assets, income and funds previously not externalized without the need to exhaustively reconstruct all their traceability before the tax agency. However, specialists emphasize that joining the regime does not prevent criminal investigations for illicit enrichment, money laundering, bribery or other crimes against the public administration.
The controversy exploded when it became known that several leaders and officials linked to La Libertad Avanza decided to take advantage of the benefits created by the national administration itself. The most notorious cases, of course, were those of the Chief of Staff and his partner who entered the Simplified Earnings Regime in the midst of prosecutor Pollicita’s judicial investigation into the family assets.
However, the Adornis are not the only case of government officials joining. Among the adherents are the Minister of Deregulation and Transformation of the State, Federico Sturzenegger and to the same ARCA owner, Andrés Vázquez. The former national deputy is also mentioned José Luis Espert, linked to businessman arrested for money laundering and fraud in Texas, Fred Machado, among those who used mechanisms contemplated by the new tax scheme. Other names on the spectrum of the libertarian movement are Santiago Oría, Fernando Iglesias, Felipe Nuñez, Adrián Ravier and the former Chief of Staff, Guillermo Francos.
Beyond the payroll, the central figure of the scandal continues to be the coordinator of ministers. The chronology of the crisis began to be built during the first months of this year, when different journalistic investigations began to point out inconsistencies between the declared income and the standard of living exhibited by their family group. The first questions were related to real estate properties, trips and expenses whose magnitude seemed difficult to reconcile with his public asset declarations.
During March, the first revelations appeared about a home in the country Indio Cúa Golf Club, located in Exaltación de la Cruz, linked to the marriage. The property came under scrutiny due to alleged renovation work valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars and questions about who actually financed the work. At the same time, doubts arose about trips abroad and private flights, especially a trip to Punta del Este whose financing began to be investigated.
Shortly after, a new chapter was added related to an apartment in Caballito. The real estate operation revealed that the acquisition of the property would have involved unusual financing mechanisms, through two retired ladies, and private loans that aroused suspicions about the true structure of the operation. The researchers began to reconstruct the history of the funds used for the purchase, the subsequent renovations and the heritage evolution associated with the property.
The judicial file took on a higher dimension when digital financial movements began to be analyzed. In May, federal prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita received reports from cryptocurrency platforms that confirmed operations linked to Adorni. From there, a reconstruction of virtual wallets, transfers and movements of digital assets began. Justice maintains that there are accredited transactions and seeks to determine if there are others that have not yet been reported.
The property investigation is being processed in the federal court of Ariel Lijo, with the impetus of the prosecutor’s office. Investigators are seeking to establish whether the assets accumulated by Adorni can be justified with legal and duly declared income. Among the measures already ordered are requests for banking, tax, registry and real estate information, in addition to the analysis of movements with cryptocurrencies and financial operations carried out in recent years.
The crisis reached its most delicate point when Adorni decided to present corrective affidavits. In them he incorporated assets and funds that did not appear in previous versions and explained that a substantial portion of his fortune came from investments made in Bitcoin between 2014 and 2018. During a television interview with José Del Río for LN+, he acknowledged that he and his family had maintained undeclared savings for years, a statement that provoked a strong political reaction and deepened the debate about the legality of his assets.
From a criminal point of view, the main hypothesis under analysis by the prosecution is alleged illicit enrichment. Depending on the evolution of the investigation and the documentation that the judicial experts manage to gather, possible figures linked to falsehood or omission in sworn statements, tax evasion, money laundering or use of third parties to hide assets could also be analyzed. For now, Justice will determine whether the explanations recently presented by Adorni are sufficient to justify the asset growth recorded in recent years.
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