Gustavo Bazzan
03/08/2021 2:51 PM
Clarín.com
Economy
Updated 03/08/2021 2:51 PM
The Buenos Aires government began to receive the first funds by applying the 8% rate of gross income
on the interest that financial institutions receive for investing their excess liquidity in the Leliq
(liquidity
bills
) issued by the Central Bank and which pay paying a rate of 38% per year.
The tax applies to
passive repo
operations
, which today yield 32% per year.
In the collection corresponding to the month of January, which was collected in February to the expired month,
the Buenos Aires coffers pocketed about 1,900 million pesos,
according to sources from the tax area of the Horacio Rodríguez Larreta government commented to this newspaper.
The amount entered is in line with the projection that the Buenos Aires authorities had made at the time of announcing the tax.
As can be seen, the government of the City of Buenos Aires turned a
deaf ear to the claims
that Miguel Pesce from the
Central Bank,
as well as from the Ministry of Economy headed by
Martín Guzmán
, made him to desist from applying this tax, given that they considered inappropriate said tax on a
monetary regulation instrument such
as the Leliq.
The application of the Gross Income tax on the Leliq was the answer that Rodríguez Larreta found at hand to compensate, partially at least, it
removes it in the federal tax sharing applied by the national government.
The calculations of the Buenos Aires officials show a loss of income of
65,000 million pesos a year
.
To compensate for this lack of funds, they apply the tax on the leliq and also on the
consumption with credit cards
that is registered in each card established in the city of Buenos Aires.
On this point, the authorities admitted that due to the drop in credit card use that has been observed so far this year, income is lower than expected.
The City hopes that the
Supreme Court will
resolve the claim filed by the City for the return of the coparticipation funds stolen by a Government DNU and by the law voted by Congress at the end of last year.
In the middle of this fight, Minister Martín Guzmán expressed, in a letter sent to Rodríguez Larreta, that "we must not continue with bad examples. Taxing a monetary policy instrument with Gross Income
generates a problem for the rest of the country. , to all the provinces and to the city of Buenos Aires ".
Guzmán believes that the tax "implies making the cost of credit more expensive and all companies are harmed in the possibility of generating work and investing"
.
For Guzmán, appealing to this funding resource "is not a sensible way to act, it is not a responsible way from the point of view of federalism and the national government is going to use all its tools to
prevent this from happening
.
"
In similar terms, the head of the Central Bank,
Miguel Pesce
, had expressed himself
: “I find myself in the need to ask you to arbitrate the necessary measures in order to avoid taking tax actions that distort the policies carried out by the BCRA ”.
Pesce also argued that the Supreme Court of Justice has jurisprudence on the impossibility of districts to "advance on BCRA regulations."
The Buenos Aires government ignored the claims.
And in fact, the funds that the banks liquidate in Rents are already entering the treasury.
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