On 15 April the Secretariat for Entrepreneurs and Small & Medium Enterprises (SEPyME) published Resolution 220/2019 creating the Registry of Micro, Small & Medium-sized Enterprises (MiPyMES), which also sets the criteria that companies must meet to be classified as such.

The Resolution, drawn up to comply with Act 24,467, 13 July 2016 on promoting MSMEs, covers the following areas:

Creating a Registry for MSMEs

A Registry for MSMEs is to be set up with the following functions:

1. To store updated information about the composition and characteristics of the various MSME sectors
2. To collate, register, digitize and protect information and documents about companies that want or need to accredit their MSME status
3. To issue certificates accrediting the condition of MSME

Relations of linkage and control

In principle, the resolution does not allow the registration of those companies that, despite meeting the legally established requirements, control or are controlled by and/or linked to other company(ies) or economic group(s) that do not in turn meet the conditions set in the legislation. Thus, the regulation stipulates:

• Linkage: a company is considered to be linked to another/other company(ies) or economic group(s) when it/they have a 20% stake or more in the former.
• Control: a company is considered to be controlled by or to control another company, when it has a participation, directly or through another company controlled in turn, of more than 50% of the former’s capital. In these cases, compliance with the requirements must be analyzed for all the companies as a whole and the activity which accounts for the economic group’s largest proportion of income must be considered its principal activity.

The exception to this general rule are the enterprises provided for in Act 27.349 to support entrepreneurial capital[1], already discussed in Progreso 13, provided that entrepreneurial  capital institutions have invested in them. In this way they can be treated as MSMEs even when they are linked to other companies that do not meet the required conditions.

MSME certificate

The certificate will be valid from when its date of issue until the last day of the fourth month after the end of the applicant company’s tax period and may be renewed at the interested party’s request or automatically. Furthermore, the SEPyME itself may remove from the Registry any MSME that has submitted untrue information or documents. In these cases, the certificate will become invalid, whatever the date. There is a model of the certificate in an appendix to the Resolution.