Suppose we believe in the healthy and free competition of markets. For an instant we become liberal in economics. Well, this competition must recognize a fundamental fact: what is the equality of legal conditions. That is, all the actors who intend to offer products have equal rights. More liberal impossible!
But RIGI marks clear differences between Argentine industry and commerce with the foreign companies that they will be able to join the local market without paying taxes or tariffs and in the worst case, paying much less in taxes.
This demoralizes and removes incentives from what is left of the national industry and places at severe risk of extinction, not only thousands of SMEsbut also to big enterprises that have invested and developed, for years, in the country.
This regime of tax exemptions for large investors will put anyone who comes with the stipulated amount (200 million dollars) at an advantage with the local production and marketing system and will take away any possibility of generating value, while at the same time it will imply a drop in sales, dismissal of workers and crisis in national development sectors.
I think it is correct to establish legality and attraction mechanisms for foreign private investments. It is good and is useful for the promotion of some areas that currently lack the necessary investment to ensure infrastructure for their production. It is always useful to have income Dollars that guarantee an increase in reserves in hard currency and achieve macroeconomic improvements.
Welcome the capital that brings progress and job creation In our country. But this model that they intend to legalize and that the senators approved, is ridiculously extremely beneficial for the investor and dangerously harmful and destructive for the Argentine business community.
As the RIGI is stated, it does not value anything that has to do with health policies. local promotion or tax incentive some for the Argentines. Let’s not even say that it is “illiberal” by setting the minimum of 200 million as a requirement to enter the plan, as if someone who wants to invest 180 million does not have the right to enjoy the same benefits (I clarify this from a liberal perspective, which no longer exists. I share).
The RIGI can bring equipment such as investment, machinery, materials to the country, all without paying tariffs and that already puts them at an advantage with respect to the national cost, which pays taxes for each productive step it takes.
It’s simple, the benefits for new investors will be like this: they do not pay VAT (locals pay 21%), they do not pay import duties (here you pay 13%), they do not pay Gross income (here 6%), in Profits They will pay 25% compared to 35% of the locals, they do not pay a statistics fee (here 3%), they do not pay the COUNTRY tax (locals 17.5%) and there are even more, but this is the substance.
A situation that is clearly unfair and I insist, within the framework of the liberal thought that encourages or claims to encourage this government. Of course, in the eyes of those of us who believe in an Argentina planned with balance, social sense and harmonious development of regions and sectors, all this is a tremendous audacity and greed of law firms of foreign companies that delivered this proposal with the expectation that Give at least 30% of what they asked for and they take, as an early Christmas gift, the total of what they asked for! As the great Jorge Luis Borges could well say: “It’s not just that it’s terrible, it’s something worse, it’s exaggerated.”
A no minor issue is that it has a legal validity of 30 years and the controversies that arise must be litigated in the ICSIDwhere we have vast experience in Argentina never winning a trial.
In almost all countries that implement regulatory models for foreign investors, forms are used from fiscal and accounting techniques that ensure sustainability for local companies, for national suppliers and the mandatory use of some Buy National model. Local value is respected. Both the necessary investment and the defense of the local are valued to that the national industry has development and can compete with opportunities.
Technological innovation is not guaranteed with gifts to large investors and we have models (almost all state-run, such as Invap and ArSat and National Universities) with a strong presence in the digital productive world and new technologies, which are the best instrument to be complemented by serious and reasonable investments to integrate into world trade and, in the country, generate more formal employment.
More than political differentiation, it causes me enormous sadness that the Legislature of my province, Black river, has voted by majority to support the RIGI. And that national deputies and senators from Rio Negro, not from Pro or LLA, vote for the Base Lawwhich contains RIGI. It’s a huge mistake.
