Argentina's lower house unanimously approves tax relief bill pushed by Sergio Massa

Argentina's lower house on Wednesday approved a tax relief bill with the support of both government and opposition legislators. The initiative, the work of Speaker Sergio Massa, now passes to the Senate.

The proposal received the support of all 198 lawmakers present in the Chamber of Deputies, with none either voting against or abstaining. The measure had incorporated proposals from both the opposition and AFIP tax bureau in its committee stage.

Massa thanked all deputies present for accompanying him, highlighting that his initiative would benefit "over a million tax-payers, more than 150,000 PyMEs (small and medium-sized companies) and almost a million self-employed while representing a fiscal sacrifice of over 560 billion pesos for the state."

"This is a tool which will help those felled by the pandemic to recover," added the former Tigre mayor and Cabinet chief.

The initiative establishes the total condonation of tax, customs duty and social security contribution debts and arrears of all co-operatives and school support organisations, volunteer fire brigades, popular libraries, neighbourhood clubs and civil society associations offering social, charity, literary and artistic assistance – a total of 6,727 entities who stand to benefit from having their fiscal slates wiped clean.

The bill further exempts small companies and all the self-employed whose income and IVA value-added tax bills are less than 100,000 pesos from paying their tax debts with over a million tax-payers standing to benefit.

The bill also incorporates opposition proposals to extend the moratorium to all debts and not just those subsequent to August 1, 2020. Those tax-payers not complying with the previous moratorium can thus go straight again – a benefit for over 105,000 micro-companies (MiPymes) and self-employed.

The bill further creates a new opportunity for over half a million tax-payers to normalise their fiscal situation with benefits for those who do pay their taxes.

– TIMES/NA