After the strong rise since December at the pumps, gasoline could rise up
to 11%
from Thursday due to the update of the tax on Liquid Fuels (ICL).
The Government began to evaluate this measure to add revenue and
compensate for the blockage of its tax reform provided for in the omnibus law.
According to calculations by the oil industry, the levy in question
has not been updated since July 2021,
which would have generated an
accumulated delay of 377%.
The Government of Alberto Fernández decided to freeze it amid the acceleration of inflation, a measure that was later extended by the Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, a few days before the second electoral round.
Now, the expectation in the sector is that there will be an adjustment to the tax on liquid fuels and carbon dioxide, which could be reflected in an 11% increase in pumps since Thursday, when the extension of the freeze ordered by Massa expires.
In that case, a liter of super gasoline
would go from $699 to $775, while the value of premium gasoline would rise from $862 to $956.
Since December, the Government of Javier Milei launched a shock plan, which began with a 55% devaluation and the "liberation of prices", including fuel.
Thus,
since November gasoline prices have risen 140%
, which had an impact on pockets and caused a
drop in fluid sales of 20% since the beginning of the year.
During the campaign, Milei had promised that before raising taxes he was going to "cut off an arm" and that the adjustment of public spending was going to fall on the political "caste."
However, the difficulties in achieving zero deficit first led to incorporating a tax increase in the omnibus law and now, after the failure of that strategy, the increase in the fuel tax began to be evaluated.
The former Minister of Economy, Nicolás Dujovne, assured on Sunday that "it is very important for the Economy to show how it is going to replace the resources that it loses, eventually, due to the fiscal chapter of the Law" and explained that the "Laundering and Moratorium do not generate much in In the short term,
what ALREADY added up for the Nation was withholdings (0.5% of GDP) and Profits (0.4% of GDP)".
However, the economist estimated that this loss of resources, equivalent to 0.9% of GDP, can be
recovered with the fuel tax
, which today collects 0.4% of GDP for the Nation, and with the Country Tax, whose The rate is 17.5% and the Executive has the power to raise it.
"Everything lost can be recovered," he explained through the X network.
For the director of the IARAF, Nadín Argañaraz, if the government updates the fuel tax based on the accumulated delay, the price of gasoline
could rise by 25%
.
According to his calculations, monthly collection fell by 77% due to the freeze.
And if it were adjusted, the Nation could raise extra resources for 0.37% of GDP and the provinces, for 0.15%.
The fuel tax was created by law in 1998 and during the administration of Mauricio Macri, it was
updated quarterly, adjusted to CPI inflation
, and then postponed in 2019 and frozen from 2021. Now, its possible unfreezing would add more pressure on inflation, which in January would have been around 20%.
Fuel represents
20% of the transportation cost
and, in turn, implies a little more than 50% of the tax burden, so an increase in the tax will have an impact on the bus ticket.
On the other hand, the weight that fuels have in the CPI at the national level is around 4%, so that for every 10 points that gasoline increases, the CPI tends to rise 0.4%, according to Ecolatina.