Argentinian President Mauricio Macri proposes amnesty for tax dodgers

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Agence France-Presse

Argentinian President Mauricio Macri proposes amnesty for tax dodgers

Macri acknowledged he has US$1.25 million in an account in the Bahamas in a mandatory asset declaration, which showed his fortune had doubled from the year before.

PUBLISHED : Saturday, 28 May, 2016, 1:31pm
UPDATED : Saturday, 28 May, 2016, 1:31pm

Argentinian President Mauricio Macri, who has been swept up in the Panama Papers controversy over offshore assets, announced plans on Friday to grant amnesty to those who repatriate undeclared funds from overseas.

The conservative president, who has launched sweeping pro-business reforms since taking office in December, said the country needed Argentines to invest at home to boost the sputtering economy.

“Argentines have billions of pesos overseas because they didn’t trust in the state. We need to tell them to join us, to be part of our new era. We invite them to wipe the fiscal slate clean,” said Macri.

The president himself acknowledged he has US$1.25 million in an account in the Bahamas in a mandatory asset declaration published on Thursday, which showed his fortune had doubled from the year before, to 110 million pesos (US$7.8 million).

Read more: http://www.scmp.com/news/world/americas/article/1957300/argentinian-president-mauricio-macri-proposes-amnesty-tax

[forest444]

1. He should start with his own family and all his Panama Papers friends.

Aside from how absurd it is to have a guy who was one of only five current world leaders to be listed in the Panama Papers scandal announce a tax amnesty, this dovetails very nicely with what's a concerted effort on the part of the Macri administration to defang and water down Argentina's money laundering abatement laws.

Under his predecessor, Cristina Kirchner, Argentina was one of a few countries that managed to be removed from the Financial Action Task Force's gray list thanks to the many new laws put in effect at the time to discourage shady investments. Macri, of course, couldn't care less.

Thank you for posting these troubling - but hardly surprising - news, Judi.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Macri is every bit as brazen as G. W. Bush, as it appears from here. He has no shame at all.

He doesn't seem worried that everyone knows he's in this dirty business up to his eyebrows, and all his acts work to enhance life for only his small core of elites, his own tiny circle, the same people he and his father always associated with their entire lives, including racist controlling the dictatorship and choosing which people would be tortured and murdered.

Life must look very strange to the moral degenerates at the top of the heap in right-wing governments. They are so stupid they think people want to knock them out of office because they want to have all the goodies themselves, instead of realizing people want them out of office because they are murderous criminals.

It will take so long to get the country back to where it was after Néstor Kirchner built it back after pulling it out of the ditch.

[Octafish]

3. President Obama's friend.

Macri's gonna go far.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Maybe he'll get a Nobel Prize, for re-privatizing everything. n/t

[Calista241]

5. I suppose that's the only reaistic choice.

Rather than putting the entire country in jail.

[forest444]

6. Judging from their revenue-to-GDP levels, most people in Argentina appear to pay their taxes.

Federal revenues are 24% of GDP (compared to 19% in the U.S.) - and the top marginal tax rate there is 35%.

Like in most countries though, their elites have become accustomed to believing that most rules don't apply to them.

The case of the Macri family is particularly egregious, since they are not only brazen tax dodgers (this was known long before the Panama Papers scandal); but actually became rich off padded public contracts - in other words, on the taxpayers' very dime.

We in the U.S. can certainly relate, given the many federal contractors who've lined their pockets big time (particularly in the MIC) and are now gaming the system in order to pay 2% effective tax or less.