If only it were true.
After posting regularly on this issue since 2020, recent progress in my own migration process meant the time had come to get to the bottom of the matter once and for all, so I contracted an expensive taxation lawyer here in Buenos Aires specialized in cross-border compliance. He confirmed what common sense and any careful reading of Argentina’s
ganancias tax legislation has been telling us all along: overseas pensions are taxable in Argentina if the individual meets the criteria for Argentine tax residency, if the income is above Argentina’s minimum tax threshold, and if a double taxation agreement doesn’t give any relief.
But let’s not take his word for it, or our own reading of Argentina’s Spanish language taxation legislation. Let’s just look at the double taxation agreements for those countries that have them, all available in the official language of our home countries.
https://www.afip.gob.ar/convenios-i...convenios-para-evitar-la-doble-imposicion.asp
If a pension drawn overseas by a foreigner who has become an Argentine tax resident were exempt from tax in Argentina, there would be no need for any Argentine double tax treaty with another country to include an article on pensions. But each does include such an article (amongst a range of separate articles for other income categories, e.g., dividends, rental income, employment income, etc.). And none of these pension articles says that the pension is only taxable in the country where it is drawn because Argentina exempts foreign pensions from tax. On the contrary, by setting out the rules by which a pensioner who has become an Argentine tax resident must determine in which of the two jurisdictions he or she must declare each year, these articles make clear that foreign pensions are taxable in Argentina (provding, of course, that the the amount meets the minimum threshold).
It may well be the case that, as a matter of policy, AFIP is not currently looking to pursue pensioners from overseas who have become tax residents in Argentina. That is quite plausible and probably what the helpful AFIP officer was really saying. But that is very different to saying that pension income is exempt.
By the way, the tax lawyer confirms Lucky's hunch in the post above (and which echoes many claims many have made on the board in recent years that have never been verified): if your traceable electronic activity is modest and you don’t live too ostentatiously or “big”, AFIP do have bigger animals to hunt with more meat on the bone, so you’ll probably be fine.
Another useful tip I gleaned from the adviser (again something that has been speculated about on this board but never confirmed): if you have fallen into tax residency and are nervous about it, the way to correct it is to leave the country and then spend no more than 90 days back here over the following 365 days. That cures you of tax residency at the 365-day mark. But, if you spend more than 183 days in a subsequent 365 period in Argentina, you’re back where you started: a tax resident again.
Finally, he clarified in layman's language something that is quite poorly expressed in the
ganancias law: the way for someone who is pursuing residency via Migraciones (e.g., as a
rentista, or a
pensionista, or various other categories) to avoid becoming a tax resident at least during the period leading up to permanent residency is to spend at least 90 days in each 12-month period of your residency process outside the country.
