Revenue sharing demand takes center stage at Peronist Governors' Summit in Argentina.

Eleven governors and numerous party leaders and lawmakers attended the Justicialist Party summit in the Province of San Juan (in the Argentine Andes) on Friday. Among the issues they addressed was the Supreme Court ruling last November that ordered the reimbursement of the 15% social security tax provinces had been paying back to the federal government on their revenue sharing income since 1992. Federal revenue sharing, first enacted in Argentina in 1988, reached US$44 billion in 2015.

The ruling, which pertained to a suit brought forward by three provinces (Córdoba, San Luis, and Santa Fe), prompted former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to extend the reimbursement to all provinces and the City of Buenos Aires, since Article 75 of the Argentine Constitution requires that federal tax rates be equal across the country. President Mauricio Macri, who has been ruling by decree since his December 10 inaugural, rescinded the order however.

President Macri, on the other hand, last week decreed a raise in the revenue sharing quota allotted to the City of Buenos Aires from 1.9% to 3.75% - an increase of nearly US$1 billion. Santa Cruz Governor Alicia Kirchner questioned the recent decision by the federal government to increase the revenue sharing quota of the City of Buenos Aires considering it “unfair.”

Governor Kirchner added that the Macri administration used the transfer of the Federal Police to the City as an “excuse” to boost the City’s share in the federal funds. “I think it has to do with the very significant borrowing by Macri when he was the City Mayor that is due this year,” said the former Minister of Social Development during the Cristina Fernández de Kirchner administration.

Over US$600 million in debt interest and amortization payments are due by the City of Buenos Aires in 2016 - more than the city's entire debt load when Macri took office as Mayor in 2007.

In tune with Alicia Kirchner’s statements, Río Negro Province Senator Miguel Ángel Pichetto said that the demand for reimbursement of 15% of the revenue sharing for all provinces was “fair,” adding the position of the federal government was “centralist” (i.e. Buenos Aires-centric).

At: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/207325/revenue-sharing-demand-takes-center-stage-at-san-juan-summit
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Centralism in favor of Buenos Aires, even to the detriment of the nation's 23 provinces, has been a fixture of Argentine conservatism through the country's 200 year history. Argentina's George Washington, Gen. José de San Martín, was in fact forced to leave the country in 1824 for refusing to support centralism (or any other regional demands).

To this day, Buenos Aires right-wingers (Macri's core base) are said to believe that “Argentina ends at the Buenos Aires beltway.” Macri's certainly proving them right.