Overview
- A new IARAF analysis of policy changes between 2019 and 2026 shows the effective tax rate on the highest‑income profile fell by as much as 7.78 percentage points while the lowest‑income profile saw its tax share rise by 0.39 points and lost about 2.5% of disposable purchasing power.
- The study measured direct and indirect levies at national, provincial and municipal levels for four representative household profiles, including impuesto a las ganancias, personal contributions, employer social contributions, patrimonial taxes and consumption taxes.
- IARAF identifies three main drivers of the gain for high earners: cuts and re‑scalings in the income tax, non‑indexing of contribution ceilings that reduced effective personal contribution rates for top incomes, and reliefs to financial and patrimonial levies such as the repeal of the financial income tax and changes to Bienes Personales.
- The rise in burden for the poorest profile is largely explained by employer social contributions returning to an almost flat 19.3% rate after the patronal minimum non‑imponible was frozen and eroded by inflation, which removed a targeted relief meant to protect low wages.
- Provincial Ingresos Brutos and higher municipal rates raised consumption taxation for all profiles by about 0.63–1.24 points and the report warns that Argentina’s federal tax structure and the slow, complex national reform process make reversing these distributional effects politically and technically difficult.