As soon as he took office, Alberto Fernández presented his own omnibus law, which he called Social Solidarity and productive reactivation within the framework of the public emergency.
There, among other powers, he managed to get the
PAIS Tax
(For an Inclusive and Solidarity Argentina) voted, which was nothing more than a
surcharge on the purchase of dollars
for savings and the
payment of expenses with
a credit or debit card abroad. in addition to services purchased outside the country, such as
air tickets
or hotels.
The 30% tax
came into force at the beginning of 2020, after the approval of the law, and was
valid for 5 years
.
And it was set at 8% for digital goods, such as streaming services like
Netflix or Spotify.
However, as the dollar shortage drew closer to the previous government, the PAIS tax was extended to luxury goods and,
since last July, also to imports in general, which began to pay 7.5%.
Later,
Javier Milei increased that 7.5% to 17.5%
for freight for import and export of goods, and import of merchandise not exempt from the tax, as long as it is not luxury goods.
In this way,
it gained weight in collection
because it affects a much wider range of activities than those originally planned.
Hence, the governors now request the co-participation of this tax in the negotiation for the omnibus law.
How much does the PAIS tax collect?
The PAIS tax was the only one that beat inflation in 2023. While overall collection closed with a drop of 8.2% in real terms (that is, discounted inflation) and reached $42,981,821 million,
This particular levy reached $1,510,889 million.
This is
a real increase of 202.9%, according to the consulting firm ACM.
This was due to the expansion of the tax base starting last July.
This tax began to take on more and more relevance.
"During 2022, it represented 0.4% of GDP while by 2023 that percentage would have risen to 0.8%,
doubling its collection in one year,"
the ACM consultation calculated.
Due to the extension of the tax (and also due to the devaluations of August and December) that took place in July, 79% of the total collected by the PAIS tax in 2023 was registered between August and December.
NE