:quality(75)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/elcomercio/D4RGOTCBSNBDXGAUKDHCBCGTQI.jpg "Thousands of agricultural producers in Argentina protest against fiscal pressure")
Thousands of protesters marched through the streets of Buenos Aires on Saturday to protest against the fiscal pressure on the agricultural sector, in a context of sharp rise in fuel and fertilizer prices.
The demonstrators traveled in cars and vans, to which were added several dozen tractors, the Avenida del Libertador to the Casa Rosada, seat of the Argentine government, where they read a proclamation.
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“We have not come here to ask for a hand, but to get both of us off of us (…) We are not willing to continue financing the rope with which they hang us,” they said.
“Unfortunately we cannot take advantage of international prices to continue supporting the country”complained Dario Magi, 56 years old and owner of a chicken and pig farm, who warned of the fiscal pressure that the agricultural sector supports and requested a tax reduction.
According to a study by FADA, a foundation of the sector itself, 64.9% of the income of producers agricultural It goes to taxes, most of it for export duties, popularly known as withholdings.
“The retentions are our production and he (President Alberto Fernández, ndlr) wastes it. We do not have benefits with what he is stealing from us, because the withholdings are our profit, which allows us to produce”Magi said.
The protesters also showed their fear of the recent plan announced by the Minister of Economy, Martín Guzmán, who opened the door to an income tax “unexpected”, a tribute to those companies that have a profit of more than 1,000 million pesos (around 8.5 million dollars) and whose profit has “significantly increased” he explained.
The government ruled out that this plan will affect the sector. The Minister of Agriculture, Julián Domínguez, told the newspaper Clarín that Argentine producers “they did not capture the windfall rent” because they sold the production before prices skyrocketed 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 has to be addressed, we will attend to it and we will listen to it”, Dominguez added.
The block leader of the Frente de Todos in the Chamber of Deputies, Germán Martínez, “It is a purely political activity of the sectors closest to Together for Change. They have every right to express themselves in a democracy, but you have to clearly define what the objective is”, Martinez noted.
Source: Elcomercio
