\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t A proposal to formalize the country\u2019s economy via a tax on cash withdrawals and the elimination of other taxes sparked a fiery debate on Argentine social media, with economists, politicians, and even President Javier Milei weighing in.<\/p>\n
The project was created by Emmanuel \u00c1lvarez Agis, an economist who served as deputy economy minister during Cristina Fern\u00e1ndez de Kirchner\u2019s second presidential term. The uproar began after libertarian lawmaker Agust\u00edn Romo shared a 14-second clip of the economist speaking only about the cash tax.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The recording shows \u00c1lvarez Agis saying that the plan\u2019s goal is to make consumers encourage businesses to go legit, using a hypothetical 10% tax to make his point: \u201cI go to the ATM and want to withdraw AR$1,000, but only get AR$900.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Monday, Milei posted on X that \u00c1lvarez Agis\u2019 idea consists of \u201cstealing 10% of your income that you allocate to consumption\u201d and called him a \u201cthief\u201d and \u201cstupid.\u201d The president is an anarcho-capitalist who posits the idea that taxation is theft.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey never think about reducing spending, only about how to collect more so that they can decide how much and what to spend your money on,\u201d he added. Libertarian lawmakers and influencers followed suit, criticizing the proposal and insulting \u00c1lvarez Agis.<\/p>\n
Milei went as far as to compare the proposal to a stick-up. \u201cWhat\u2019s the difference between this proposal and someone waiting for you outside an ATM and stealing 10% of your money?\u201d he said in another post on X.<\/p>\n
The president, however, did not comment on the other part of the project aimed at eliminating a tax on checks, which applies to checking account transfers.<\/p>\n
The proposal\u2019s author explains \u00c1lvarez Agis\u2019s proposal aims to formalize the economy via digital payment methods. In a follow-up interview in La Naci\u00f3n+, he said that Milei only commented on half of the project, adding that his plan does not increase the tax burden, only \u201credistributes it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is currently a tax on formality, which is the check tax,\u201d he said. The economist went on to explain his logic, saying that he plans to tax the use of cash, which in turn should encourage consumers to pay with electronic means and businesses to formalize their operations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Currently, retailers prefer to operate in cash in order to avoid taxes on their sales or profits. It\u2019s not uncommon to find businesses all over the country that offer sizable discounts when paid with cash.<\/p>\n
\u201cArgentina has a big problem with informality,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat this means is that those of us who are formal basically pay the taxes that those who are informal do not pay.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to online publication Visual Capitalist, Argentina is among the countries that use the most cash, ranking 24th in a list of 123 nations and relying on cash for 70% of its transactions.<\/p>\n
The site concludes that the poorest countries rely most on cash, reflecting limited banking infrastructure, and that \u201cmoderate economic development doesn\u2019t automatically mean digital adoption.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A proposal to formalize the country\u2019s economy via a tax on cash withdrawals and the elimination of other taxes sparked a fiery debate on Argentine social media, with economists, politicians, and even President Javier Milei weighing in. The project was created by Emmanuel \u00c1lvarez Agis, an economist who served as deputy economy minister during Cristina […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":8328,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3059,62,42,61],"tags":[3058,95,96,89],"class_list":["post-8327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cash","category-dollar-peso","category-economics","category-javier-milei","tag-cash","tag-dollar-peso","tag-economics","tag-javier-milei"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}