Income taxes and VISAs for pensioners

[mlee]

My wife and I may be coming to Buenos Aires for a year or more for her work. I’m retired, have a pension and SS from the US. We might even consider staying longer.

I read that Argentina does not tax pension income. A pensioner must pay income taxes if he gets a job or earns additional income from another source within Argentina.

Is a pensioner taxed only on the additional income from a job or other source within Argentina?

Or, if a pensioner earns additional income, is he taxed on additional income and also the pension?


And this is a little confusing to me: A foreign national who has a pension of at least [ARS 30,000, this minimum obviously changes], may be eligible to apply for a temporary resident visa. The visa has a validity of 1 year, renewable up to 3 years. After that, the resident may apply for permanent residency. After two years of permanent residency, the resident will be eligible for citizenship.

This appears to imply the pensioner tax exemption is temporary, not indefinite.

Does “...renewable up to 3 years ...” mean that a pensioner must eventually become a permanent resident to remain?

And pay taxes on their pension?

Eventually paying as much as 35% taxes on a pension & US Social Security?
Thanks

 

[Rich One]

You may receive different suggestions..! Mine is consult with a local tax expert..!

 

[Fiscal]

I would leave before 183 days so you don't have to worry about it!

 

[Stantucker]

My wife and I too are US citizens who are been living in BA for three years now (since July of 2016), and believe it or not, I still have many of the same questions you asked in your post.

The accountant of an Argentine friend does our taxes here but I am not sure he really knows enough about tax law related to foreigners. My wife started receiving SS in August of 2017. Last year he told me that she had not earned enough in 2017 to have to report those benefits as income for 2017. Just a few weeks ago I asked him if we needed to report her full year 2018 SS benefits on our 2018 taxes and he told me that because we are not "monotributistas," that income did not need to be reported. Maybe he is assuming those benefits do not reach the income threshold for us to be considered "monotributistas," so there is no need to report them as income.Those two answers seem contradictory so I still don't know the answer to the question of whether or not we have to report her SS as income. By the way, we do not have regular pensions, just private retirement accounts in the US, so that's why I haven't mentioned anything about paying taxes on pensions. We have just applied for permanent residency, and my understanding is that once you have permanent residency, you will be taxed on not only your income and assets here, but anywhere in the world, just like Argentinian citizens. But I may be wrong.

I realize I have probably confused you even more, so sorry.

If any one knows the name of a good international tax attorney here, I would appreciate it. A few years ago I got one from Michael Koh, but I no longer have that name.

 

[mlee]

Thanks all. I really appreciate the suggestions and experiences. Our experience is all visas are confusinig until you’ve done them. Our planned schedule in Buenos Aires by coincidence is almost evenly divided over two calendar years and with travel each would be less than 183 days, giving us plenty of time to see how to proceed then. Now we’ll check with an Argentina embassy in advance and probably apply for visas.

Thank again. This has been a good place to start.