Taxes on real estate sales: new changes through Ley Bases

Taxes on real estate sales: new changes through Ley Bases

Reform for the liberation of transfer taxes for real estate buyers before 2018

The government recently published the tax package of the Basic Law in the Official Journal, which was passed by the House of Representatives and has experienced changes in the Senate. One of the changes provides for the lifting of the tax for real estate transfer (ITI), which obliged the owner to pay 1.5% of the sales price of a property that was acquired before December 2017 and did not have the status of an exclusive or permanent residential property. To date, someone who has sold a property for $ 100,000, which was acquired before 2018 and in which he did not live, had to pay $ 1,500, based on the official dollar course as an ITI fee.

Just a few minutes after the news was published in the Official Journal, it was Finance Minister Luis Caputo, who published a message on his social media account X: "Today we end the ITI, a harmful tax on real estate transfers that has been in force since 1991."

The tax package adopted by the executive also includes the explanation of the public emergency in administration, business, finance and energy for a year as well as privatization of some companies.

The measure is part of a number of changes that Javier Milei sent to the Congress in an ambitious bus law immediately after taking office as president, which should facilitate the tax burden on real estate sales under his 664 articles. The measures included the cancellation of the ITI tax, which has been in force since 1991 in accordance with law.

The cancellation of the ITI does not mean that all real estate owners of the state no longer have to pay tax to sell their property. Since 2018, the ITI has existed in parallel to another tax, the income tax on capital profits, which taxes the difference between purchase and sale minus the updated costs in accordance with the consumer price index (CPI) and expenditure. A specific example: If a property is bought for $ 100,000 and sold for $ 130,000, the taxpayer must pay 15% of the difference: In the example, $ 4,500, taking into account the adjustments of the index and expenses.

However, the legal basis does not take up this last tax, but only the ITI. The notary González Mantelli therefore describes the possible situation with which the market could be confronted: "Assuming that one person bought a parking space in the same building. In 2015 and another in 2019 and would like to sell it today. For those he acquired in 2015, he no longer has to pay 1.5% of the value for the ITI for those whom he bought in 2019 Pay capital profits. “

- Nag