How much revenue the city will lose by eliminating the card tax, how it will compensate for it, and how much the government owes it

The government of Buenos Aires will compensate for the abolition of the tax on credit cards with better control of public expenditure, without losing the surplus committed for this year.

At the same time, the official sources clarified that they hope that within this year the Supreme Court will release the remittance from the national government as per the High Court ruling.

The intention, once the legislator has validated the repeal of this tax which applies to the balances of the summaries of credit cards issued in the CABA, is to maintain “strict control and effective management of the current expenses which are already doing since the pandemic,” the sources told GlobeLiveMedia. The intention is not to reduce the surplus of 9 billion dollars committed in the budget of Buenos Aires for this year.

Last year the aforementioned tax, created when the national government unilaterally cut city funds, contributed $30 billion to the coffers of Buenos Aires and this year a revenue of $45 billion was projected, on a total collection of two trillion pesos. It was a transitional tax, pending the aforementioned court ruling, which the current presidential candidate Rodríguez Larreta wanted to eliminate.

The $45 billion figure is similar to the national government’s debt to the city in just two months since the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the city on December 22, 2022.

Since the government of Alberto Fernández adopted this cut to transfer more funds to the province of Buenos Aires, the loss of resources for the City between September 2020 and the end of 2022 has been 252,000 million pesos.

But in the executive of Buenos Aires they stressed that the intention was always to reduce this tax that had generated many complaints in the financial system and which is applied in other provinces, such as the territory of Buenos Aires.

During a press conference at the Metropolitan Design Center, located in the Barracas district of Buenos Aires, Rodríguez Larreta recalled that the stamp tax was a “provisional” tribute until the Supreme Court of Justice rules . Since the High Court accepted Buenos Aires’ claim with a precautionary measure, it is now keeping its promise to eliminate it despite the fact that, according to what it said, the national government did not respect the decision of the highest court.

“The neighbors cannot wait for the hour of politics and I will not stand still watching how a government that bankrupts institutions takes Argentines hostage,” explained the head of government.

“People are fed up with politicians who fight, attack each other and do not keep their promises. We don’t get into that, what I propose, I realize. This decision is a sample of my vision of what we need in Argentina. Here we are going to lower taxes. We will reduce the dead weight of the state,” he added.

Along the same lines, the president of the budget commission of the legislature of Buenos Aires, Claudio Romero, explained to GlobeLiveMedia that “the drop in collection due to the abolition of the tax will be absorbed by the result of the 2022 budget plus l ‘surplus presented for this year’.

“In 2022, the City has made prudent and efficient use of current expenditure, which will allow it to meet part of the financial cost of the abolition of this tax; the rest of the cost that the City will have to face will be made from the surplus already estimated in the budget for the current year. These measures, taken as a whole, will make it possible to proceed with the abolition of this tax, ”explained the PRO legislator.

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