11 Apr 2013 07:00
GRUPO CLARIN S.A.
Argentine Tax Authorities Apply Sanctions
On 9 April 2013, Grupo Clarín S.A. (the "Company") informed the Argentine Securities Commission and the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange that its subsidiary Cablevisión S.A. ("Cablevisión") had been served notice of Resolution No. 045/13, dated as of 3 April 2013, issued by the Federal Revenue Service Administration ("AFIP"), whereby that agency ordered a two-day closure of the fiscal domicile of Cablevisión at Av. General Hornos 690, City of Buenos Aires, for breach of AFIP General Resolution No. 1415/2002 relating to an alleged failure to issue invoices to clients of that company's audiovisual communication services in the forms and subject to the requirements and conditions set forth by AFIP. The agency also imposed a fine of Ps. 4,500.
The alleged breach by Cablevisión is rooted in AFIP's mistaken interpretation of Section 72 of Decree No. 1225/2010. Such Section provides that companies rendering audiovisual communication services must invoice services rendered to their "clients". Thus, in the case of services subscribed by building consortia (consorcios de propiedad horizontal, assemblies of owners of apartments in a residential or office building), the client, i.e. the party with which Cablevisión enters into all of its commercial and legal relationships, is the above mentioned consortium itself.
The AFIP, pursuant to General Resolution No. 3260/2012 provided that services should be invoiced to the users of the services, and interpreted such users to be the individual owners within each consortium.
Notwithstanding the wrong interpretation by the above mentioned agency, and in order to comply with the requirements of the referred General Resolution, Cablevisión started to work on identifying each one of these persons, a task that demanded a material amount of time due to the number of subjects involved.
In spite of that, the AFIP started an oversight procedure that resulted in the issuance of the resolution that was notified on 9 April 2013.
Such oversight procedure and the resulting closure fall within the framework of an evident and notorious plan to discredit, harass and persecute Cablevisión, which has been denounced before various courts. The apparent purpose of such plan-to the extent that it is publicly known-is to make the company lose value, to discredit the members of its corporate bodies and the company itself, to affect the ordinary cause of the company's management and, ultimately, the ordinary course of its business.
We note that the manner in which Cablevisión issued its invoices did not cause any prejudice to the Argentine revenue service. All due taxes were fully paid, regardless of the form of the invoices. In other words, there was no tax omission or evasion.
Finally, the resolution does not set a date for execution of such sanctions.
Cablevisión will appeal this resolution, which it considers arbitrary and discriminating.
Enquiries:
In Buenos Aires:
Alfredo Marín/Agustín Medina Manson
Grupo Clarín
Tel: +5411 4309 7215
Email: investors@grupoclarin.com
In London:
Alex Money/Clare Gallagher
Temple Bar Advisory
Tel: +44 20 7002 1080
Email: clarin@templebaradvisory.com
In New York:
Melanie Carpenter/Peter Majeski
I-advize Corporate Communications
Tel: +1 212 406 3692
Email: clarin@i-advize.com