Argentina introduces tax to make wealthy citizens fund COVID-19 relief measures

Argentina has introduced a new tax that would make its wealthiest population pay for medical supplies and relief to be provided for the rest of the citizenry during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The Argentine senate passed the one-time levy on Friday by a vote of 42 to 26.

The ‘millionaire tax’ is targeted at the estimated 12,000 population who own assets worth more than 200 million pesos ($2.5 million).

BBC reports that one of the authors of the law said it would only affect 0.8 percent of taxpayers who will pay up to 3.5 percent on assets in Argentina and 5.25 percent on those located abroad.

A sharing formula for the revenue to be generated from the tax shows that 20 percent will go to medical supplies, relief for small and medium-sized enterprises and scholarships for students will each get 20 percent.

Another 15 percent of the monies raised will be assigned to social developments and the remaining 25 percent to natural gas ventures.

The situation is different from Nigeria where the 2020 finance bill proposes tax relief for companies that donated to the COVID-19 relief fund under the private sector-led Coalition against COVID-19 (CACOVID).

Argentina has, so far, recorded 1.5 million coronavirus infections and almost 40,000 deaths from COVID-19.

In October, the South-American country became the fifth country in the world to report one million confirmed cases of the coronavirus; making it the smallest nation to surpass that figure.

Argentina, which has a population of 45 million people, has been in recession since 2018.