Argentina President Alberto imposes special tax on millionaires to tackle COVID-19 crisis

On December 6, Argentina imposed a controversial 'millionaire's tax’ on the medical equipment, supplies, and relief measures related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Directed at the country's wealthier, the bill was passed by 42 votes to 26 and is likely to impact the 12,000 citizens, about 0.8% of taxpayers with assets worth more than 200 million pesos ($2.5m; £1.8m).

People who are rich will be required to pay extra for virus-related medical products and services. President of Argentina Alberto Fernandez announced the new tax policy in the 2020 fiscal consensus. "2020 Fiscal Consensus that we signed today speaks of the responsibility we must have to move forward and how we are going to grow," Fernandez wrote in a tweet. 

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According to the new policy, the wealthier citizens were now required to pay the government a rate of up to 3.5 percent on assets within Argentina, and an estimated 5.25 percent abroad. Sources of BBC revealed that the Argentina government planned to raise 300 billion pesos to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.

While the taxation is only one time, the opposition party members have raised fears that it will deter foreign investors. Meanwhile, the Juntos por el Cambio party called the tax "confiscatory". The monetary tax was rolled by the government as the country became the fifth country in the world to record one million COVID-19 cases, with at least 12,982 new infections in the last 24 hours. 

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One-time 'contribution'

Senator and the member of the tax committee, Carlos Caserio called the tax a unique, one-time contribution, according to a statement on the Senate’s website. He added that Argentina had to recover from the virus crisis like the countries led response post-world wars, with hundreds of thousands of deaths and the economy in shambles. The country has recorded a total of 1.45 million cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic hit, as per the Johns Hopkins University’s tally. Thus far, 39,500 have succumbed to the malignant respiratory disease. 

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