Photo: Agustín Marcarian/REUTERS / Deutsche Welle
Thousands of protesters marched through the streets of Buenos Aires on Saturday (56.23.2022) to protest against the fiscal pressure on the agricultural sector, in a context of sharp rise in fuel and fertilizer prices.
The groups of protesters traveled in cars and vans -to which several dozens of tractors- Avenida del Libertador to the Casa Rosada, seat of the Argentine Government, where they read a proclamation.
“We have not come here to ask for a hand, but to get both of them off us (…) We are not willing to continue financing the rope with which they hang us” , they said.
“Unfortunately not we can take advantage of international prices to continue supporting the country,” complained Darío Magi, 56 years old and owner of a dairy farm in chickens and pigs, who warned of the fiscal pressure that the agricultural sector supports and requested a tax reduction.
According to a study by the Agricultural Foundation for Development of Argentina (FADA), an entity of the sector itself, the 64, 9% of the income of agricultural producers goes to taxes, most of it for export duties, popularly known as retentions.
“The retentions are our production and he (President Alberto Fernández) wastes it. We do not have benefits with what they are stealing from us, because the withholdings are our profit, let us produce”, affirmed Magi.
The groups of demonstrators also showed their fear of the recent plan announced by the Minister of Economy, Martín Guzmán, who opened the door to a tax on “unexpected” income, a tribute to those companies that have a profit of more than 1.000 million pesos (around 8.5 million dollars) and whose earnings have “increased significantly,” he explained.
The government ruled out that this plan will affect the sector. The Minister of Agriculture, Julián Domínguez, declared to the newspaper Clarín that the Argentine producing sectors “did not capture the unexpected income” because they sold the production before prices spiked due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And he recalled that they will have to face the next harvest with the 60% increase in the price of fertilizers.
“If there is a claim that needs to be addressed, we will attend to it and we will listen to it,” added Domínguez.
ama (afp, efe, reuters)