Latest Breaking News

Judi Lynn

(160,545 posts) Mon Dec 14, 2015, 08:55 PM Dec 2015

Argentina's new president cuts taxes on farms, manufacturing

Source: Agence France-Presse

Argentina's new president cuts taxes on farms, manufacturing

Argentina's conservative new president, Mauricio Macri, got down to business on Monday by eliminating or cutting a string of taxes on agricultural and industrial exports, seeking to kick-start Latin America's third-largest economy.

Posted 15 Dec 2015 08:02
Updated 15 Dec 2015 08:21

BUENOS AIRES: Argentina's conservative new president, Mauricio Macri, got down to business on Monday (Dec 14) by eliminating or cutting a string of taxes on agricultural and industrial exports, seeking to kick-start Latin America's third-largest economy.

Macri, whose inauguration on Thursday ended more than a decade of left-wing rule, had promised on the campaign trail to slash the South American farming giant's steep taxes on agricultural exports, which triggered major protests by producers against former president Cristina Kirchner.

He fulfilled that promise at a meeting with farmers in the heart of the Argentine breadbasket, announcing the end of taxes on wheat, corn and sorghum exports and a tax cut on soybean exports, from 35 per cent to 30 per cent.

Then he met with industrialists to announce an end to the five-per cent tax on their exports, as well. "Let's not think of things in terms of 'farms versus industry,'" he told farmers in the town of Pergamino, in the heart of the fertile plains known as the Pampas. "It's farms and industry, farms and the country. Without farms, the country can't survive."

Read more: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/business/international/argentina-s-new-president/2347636.html

3 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

Argentina's new president cuts taxes on farms, manufacturing (Original Post) Judi Lynn Dec 2015 OP

That's a $10 bn. tax cut there (6% of the budget). And how do neocons always pay for these tax cuts? forest444 Dec 2015 #1

You don't pay for cuts, you let them pile up as debt. bemildred Dec 2015 #2

Well said. I believe Macri's already looking at going down that avenue forest444 Dec 2015 #3

forest444

(5,902 posts)

1. That's a $10 bn. tax cut there (6% of the budget). And how do neocons always pay for these tax cuts?

Reply to Judi Lynn (Original post)

Mon Dec 14, 2015, 09:04 PM

Dec 2015

Last edited Mon Dec 14, 2015, 11:12 PM - Edit history (1)

Oh. right: by cutting education.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/110846145

And what does Big Agro do once it knows that exporting food is being made much more lucrative than selling it domestically?

Raise local prices by 30 to 70% overnight, and tell people that "if they can't afford bread, look in some other bakery."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016138353

bemildred

(90,061 posts)

2. You don't pay for cuts, you let them pile up as debt.

Reply to forest444 (Reply #1)

Tue Dec 15, 2015, 05:52 AM

Dec 2015

Then once the debt gets big enough, you can start the austerity routine, and that leads right into a vicious cycle that leads to the desired banana republic in which a few rule over the many.

forest444

(5,902 posts)

3. Well said. I believe Macri's already looking at going down that avenue

Reply to bemildred (Reply #2)

Tue Dec 15, 2015, 02:34 PM

Dec 2015

Or, I should say, a dead-end alley.

To think that the Kirchners cut the public debt-to-GDP ratio from 150% to 35% in 12 years, and did so with Washington neocons and Caymans criminals creating very serious obstacles every step of the way.

This sabotage campaign also forced Argentina to pay an average of close to 10% interest on their bonds, when other countries that missed payments a lot more often (the Argentines haven't missed one in 11 years) have been paying 6% or less. The improvement in the debt ratio would have, of course, been even better without that surcharge.

They also were the first administrations to successfully tackle large-scale tax evasion in Argentina, a country where for many years around half the tax revenue base would be lost to evasion. My suspicion is that under Macri, this problem will "inexplicably" rear its head again.

Karmic repetition?

Reply to this discussion