Rafael Resnick Brenner

Rafael Resnick Brenner is an Argentine lawyer and businessman who served as chief of staff of the Federal Administration of Public Revenue (Administración Federal de Ingresos Públicos, or AFIP) from 2009 to 2011. He is one of the six defendants in the Boudougate case.

Resnick Brenner was unknown to the general public until Boudougate. He is accused of being responsible for managing an "outrageous" payment plan whereby the government would pay 240 million pesos that was owed by the printing firm Ciccone Calcográfica to a collection agency.

Early life Resnick Brenner was born in 1963 or 1964.

Career Club de Campo Pueyrredón As of January 1999, he was president of the Club de Campo Pueyrredón, an exclusive residential area along the Pan American Highway near the city of Pilar. "The idea is to be able to live in peace without being inside a prison. It doesn't have to be a fortress to make you feel secure," Resnick Brenner said about the club.

Adevifta As of 2007, Resnick Brenner was working with Adevifta, the Argentine Association for the Defense of Family Housing. Adevifra is a group of homeowners with mortgage debts dating back to the 1980s. Some sources identify him as director of that organization, while others described him as council for Adevifra. In August 2007, Resnick Brenner filed a complaint on behalf of Adevifra against prominent businessman Eduardo Elsztain and former Economy Minister Felisa Miceli, accusing them of fraud and "breach of the duties of public officials to the detriment of public administration." Specifically, the defendants were charged with involvement in a scheme whereby home purchasers receiving mortgages from Banco Hipotecario were diverted to law firms that doubled or tripled their down payments.

At the time he began the job, he had assets of 26,300 pesos. By 2010, according to information presented to the Anticorruption Office, Resnick Brenner had increased his assets by 4100%.

He was chief of staff of AFIP until June 2011.

Ciccone scandal Resnick Brenner was a key figure in the AFIP at the time of the Ciccone scandal. It was Resnick Brenner who recommended that Ciccone Calcográfica be given a discount on its tax liabilities La Nación later determined, based on telephone records, that Resnick Brenner had signed two opinions both of which supported the provision of funds for a payment plan for Ciccone.

Resnick Brenner was indicted by Lijo on June 27, 2014.

In 2014, Federal prosecutor Jorge Di Lello called for Resnick Brenner to be summoned for questioning. On February 19, 2015, Judges Jorge Ballestero, Eduardo Farah, and Eduardo Freiler of the Federal Criminal Appeals Court confirmed Judge Lijo's indictments of Boudou, Núñez Carmona, Alejandro Vandenbroele, Nicolás Ciccone, Resnick Brenner, and Forcieri.

Salta After the Boudougate scandal broke in 2012, according to one source, Brenner was not fired from the AFIP but "ended up being rewarded," as Hugo Alconada Moon, a columnist for La Nación and author of a book about Boudougate, stated. Resnick Brenner was put in charge of AFIP in the province of Salta, where he lives. Instead of living in a rented house or apartment, "as is the custom for those officials who are transferred to Salta from other provinces or from the federal capital," Resnick Brenner was installed at the International Hotel Alejandro I, the province's most exclusive hotel. In August 2014, FM News reported that Resnick Brenner was living at the hotel, a five-star establishment on Belgrano Square in the center of Salta. A week later, Resnick Brenner confirmed that he was living at the hotel but said that he was paying a cheaper rate than people who stayed at the hotel for just a few nights.

In addition to his address in Salta, Resnick Brenner continued to maintain his residences at Club de Campo Pueyrredón and on calle Carlos Pellegrini in Buenos Aires. In addition, AFIP supplied him with a car and chauffeur. Asked about rumors that he was earning 75,000 pesos a month, Resnick Brenner said it was "slander."

Resnick Brenner's activities in Salta have led to controversy. "From the moment Resnick Brenner took office in Salta," reports one source, he "launched a well-oiled machinery to squeeze entrepreneurs and farmers," and began collecting "millions in bribes," mostly in the vicinity of Oran, where officials of the Federal Court No. 2, located in that town, are suspected of being complicit in his activities. The shakedown process allegedly involves the leveling of false accusations of operational irregularities, such as the use of slave labor, and the issuing of threats of severe sanctions that can only be lifted through the payment of bribes. Resnick Brenner and his cohorts have reportedly "demanded bribes ranging from one million to 10 million pesos, depending on the size of the business or farm." Some businessmen ended up in prison for several days for resisting Resnick Brenner's extortion efforts.

Among other activities, Resnick Brenner ordered a raid on a 16,000-hectare farm in the department of Oran, and issued a report maintaining that 157 employees had been found to be working in deplorable conditions. In one case in which he claimed to have uncovered the use of slave labor, as well as "a 12-year-old working in very poor condition and people who did not eat for three days," Resnick Brenner refused to identify the employers in question, purportedly for reasons of "tax secrecy."

Taxes As of 2014, Resnick Brenner, the former chief of staff of the Argentine tax agency, was facing "two judgments for unpaid taxes in the province of Buenos Aires."