Together for Change failed to pass the elimination of the credit card tax

After the ruling of the Supreme Court of Justice in which it ordered the return of part of the co-participation to the City of Buenos Aires and before the official announcement of the National Government to disregard the measure, the head of the Buenos Aires Government Horacio Rodríguez Larreta had said on Wednesday afternoon that he would eliminate the tax on credit card purchases and lower the tax on gross receipts on financial transactions. that had to be approved in the Buenos Aires Legislature. For that reason, an extraordinary session was called for today that finally did not eliminate the tax because two-thirds was needed and the ruling party did not obtain them. The bill sent by the Buenos Aires Executive provided for the repeal of the tax since December 22 after the ruling of the highest court that increased to 2.95 the coefficient received by the City for the co-participable funds in response to the demand of the Buenos Aires Government that, in its proposal, requested for 3.5. However, the rule was modified by Together for Change in the last hours when President Alberto Fernández’s decision not to comply with the Court’s ruling was known, with the purpose of conditioning the elimination of the tax on the City of Buenos Aires receiving the coefficient determined by the court. The measure was described as a “farce” and “deception” by the opposition in the wake of the changes. The changes were defined by the Executive during a meeting of Rodríguez Larreta and officials of the Finance area after the statement of the national government that described the ruling “of impossible compliance” and clarified that it implies ceding to the City of Buenos Aires “more than 180,000 million pesos additional to those already perceived.” With the new text, the blocs of the Frente de Todos (FdT) and the Left – which make up the opposition arc – changed the previous position of accompanying the law and decided not to support the authorization of the project, considered as a “table” since it did not have a previous debate in committee, but was turned directly to the session hall. ” The ruling party intended to add to the bill a clause that suspended the elimination of the tax. If the intention was to modify the original project so that it says exactly the opposite, we do not validate that deception to the porteños. We do not validate that scam,” they said from the FdT in a statement For the legislator of the FdT Javier Andrade, it was “a shame what they did” from the ruling party “to add a clause so that the tax reduction is suspended” and considered that “it was a crude montage to obtain the electoral marketing headline they needed to close the year.” Deputy Alejandrina Barry, of the FIT Unidad-PTS, said that the space she represents accompanies “any table to lower the tax on cards that is not conditional” and, in that sense, maintained that “what the ruling party proposed is an extortion and an electoral show.” From Libertad Avanza, Ramiro Marra was annoyed because “now we are going to discuss this again in March, but in the meantime taxpayers will have to continue paying the tax” and added that “the intention of Together for Change was never to lower taxes, but to extort the national government to return the co-participation.” The president of the ruling bloc Vamos Juntos, which integrates JxC, Diego García Vilas, considered that the proposal under debate was framed in “fulfilling our word to lower taxes.” “However, we find ourselves with an opposition that is not willing to enable the discussion and with a President who publicly stated that he will fail to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling regarding the resources of co-participation,” he added.

Original source in Spanish