Macri offers regional PyMES some love in Valentine’s Day speech
Saint Valentine’s Day for President Mauricio Macri including announcing a sweetheart deal of tax breaks for small and medium-sized businesses (PyMES) in regional economies last Thursday.
The tax breaks took the form of a higher tax floor for social security contributions with all wages below 17,500 pesos exempt.
“After last year’s turbulence the time has come to focus on growth,” Macri told a Pink House audience including the go- vernors of various provinces (including Río Negro, Chaco, Entre Ríos and Santiago del Estero).
According to Macri, almost half the companies working in regional economies have less than 50 employees but are the most labour-intensive.
The President then said that he had decided on the tax breaks together with Production and Labour Minister Dante Sica who then spoke, saying that the move would make regional economies more competitive and boost exports. The benefits would reach over 25,000 companies (including a lmost 20,0 0 0 PyMES) in 44 sectors employing over a quarter million workers, he added.
Sica then quantified the fiscal impact of these tax breaks at three billion pesos for this year but said that this was compatible with a balanced budget. Yet while these tax breaks were within the fiscal plan, he insisted that there could be no relenting with export duties for now.
‘BETTER OFF’
Addressing his chance of reelection, the president admitted in an interview on Wednesday that citizens were suffering due to economic turmoil, but he promised that the crisis will be slowly overcome.
“There are a lot of angry and anguished people because it costs more to get to the end of the month. But this is the only way, and the economy is going to improve slowly,” the president told the FM Pasión radio station in San Luis province.
Macri described the difficulties he has faced since coming to power in 2015, saying that living standards had “clashed with a reality that Argentina had been living beyond its means, with governments spending more than they had.”
At the beginning of his mandate, there were “provinces on their knees, unable to manoeuvre [and] crushed by a central government,” he said, recalling the “severe financial problems.”
However, he insisted today that Argentina was in a better position than before he took office. “In the economic sphere, despite the blows, we are better off than in 2015,” he said.
The president also declared that “inflation is already beginning to come down” during his interview. However, the following day, official INDEC data showed prices rose 2.9 percent in January, outpacing expectations.