Frente de Todos advances with its project

The block of Deputies of the Front of All confirmed that it will seek to present in the next few days a bill that proposes to create an extraordinary tax on the highest assets, to generate the resources the State needs to strengthen the health system and tax collection, in the face of the fall of the economy due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The intention of the caucus, led by Máximo Kirchner, is to have the tax initiative ready as soon as possible and then begin a series of negotiations with the opposition, prior to the discussion that will take place in the Budget and Finance committee.

The agreements that the oficialismo can achieve with Juntos por el Cambio, or the two provincial interblocks, are key to achieving the sanction of this initiative, since the Frente de Todos is the first minority with 119 legislators, in a legislative body that is characterized for a marked parity between the political forces.

This Friday, when announcing the extension of social, preventive and mandatory isolation until April 26 inclusive, President Alberto Fernández reiterated that the implementation of an extraordinary tax on large fortunes is “possible”, although he clarified that any tax reform is optional of the National Congress.

“Everything is possible, just as that issue is an issue that Congress has to resolve“The President said about the initiative of the parliamentary government, when giving a press conference from the Olivos Residence, where he also remarked:” We need to obtain resources because the lack of economic activity has caused the collection to fall. “

The legislative initiative, which will be finalized over the weekend, would aim to create an extraordinary tax on money laundering, the profits of large economic groups, banks, supermarkets, laboratories and insurance companies.

One of the issues that will be defined when establishing the tax rate is whether it is high wealth because it generates sources of work or high idle fortunes.
Sources of that block indicated that there will be no tax on money laundering in 2017, but if it is high assets, they will be included in that tax.

The project was drafted by one of the main economic swords of that force, businessman Carlos Heller, who entrusted this week to Máximo Kirchner to study tax alternatives in order to provide the State with additional resources

In this sense, Heller already explained that “there we speak of reaching only those with high power of wealth accumulation”.

In statements to Miter radio, the deputy stated that “the idea of ​​taxing those who have more than 150,000 dollars was never part of our project, very far from that, maybe 20 or 30 times that, but I say it by way of example, do not take it to the letter, there is still no accurate data on that; we are working”.

“It was always designed for great wealth, great profits, great patrimonies, and nobody is going to be less millionaires after they have to make that contribution,” he clarified, while he asked not to do “terrorism, the projects that are worth are those who have the support of the majority, and we do this on the recommendation of the head of the caucus, and he is the one who advances. “

Heller’s clarification is due to the fact that in recent days there was an initiative called “Homeland Tax”, designed by the union extraction deputy Carlos Cisneros, which increased taxes on assets of more than 10 million pesos and that reached the middle class .

Other voices

From the opposition, the radical Alejandro Cacace said that the response to the coronavirus demanded “worldwide the approval by the governments of important fiscal stimuli” and indicated that “Argentina, in fact, is having a modest expense in relation to advanced economies (less than 3% of GDP compared to measures of between 9 and 15% of GDP in the United States, Germany, France, Japan, and the United Kingdom), being one of the countries with the strongest restrictions on freedom of movement He has imposed”

“Income tax should be targeted at individuals and not companies to avoid distortions and inefficiencies, and the tax on personal property if it does not take into account the liabilities in the patrimony and also starts from very low thresholds, can make the mistake of taxing the middle class, “said the deputy of the UCR.

On the other hand, the head of the CTA and national deputy of the Front of All, Hugo Yasky, stressed today that the project of that plant “creates an extraordinary and one-time tax on large fortunes”, and stressed that “it is not only an initiative in Argentina but worldwide “.

Yasky asked that “no one believe that this is reaching into the pocket of the middle class or charging the businessman who has two workers,” since the tax “is directed at large personal fortunes and companies that have the best balance sheets, which are figures that do not reach 1% of people or companies in the country as a whole. “

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