Argentina Begins Tracking All Credit Cards

Argentina Begins Tracking All Credit Cards

www.forbes.com

In an eerie glimpse of what a cashless society enables, the government of Argentina has taken the drastic step of mandating banks to report every credit card purchase to the tax authorities, AFIP. Also introduced on Friday, another measure adds a 15 percent tax surcharge every time a purchase is made outside the country using a credit card issued by an Argentine bank.

(visit the link for the full news article)

The article goes on to say

This action targets those people that have been using credit cards as a way to purchase at the official rate rather than the black market rate, in effect creating a dual credit card exchange regime. Capital flight is high in Argentina due to the depreciating peso and currency controls are becoming more and more aggressive.

Wow.. this is an interesting move on the part of Argentina. The thing I find most interesting is how wide spread the tax evasion is there and how this is the mechanism chosen to attempt to curtail that...

Is this a glimpse of things to come in more countries?

www.forbes.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by HunkaHunka


Well at least they can get rid of all those Customs Inspectors because everything the Argentinians buy outside the country will be pre-taxed at 15%. Any additional customs charge, import duty or import tax will be double-dipping. Hopefully double-dipping on taxes is illegal in Argentina.

Cheers - Dave

Ever notice how stuff that the New World Order wants to try out, they first test out in South America?

Like the neo-liberal economic policies of Pinochet? They tried that out in Chile first, and then started using the exact same policies in the USA later.

It would not surprise me if tracking credit card numbers could soon make its way up here into the United States!

Another scary thing is that this all involved number... credit card number... I am sure the numerical mark of the beast from the Bible may make an appearance... Yikes!

This is nothing new, every time you use a credit card your location and transaction are logged, if there is a camera in the store you are also on film. How is this any different?

reply to post by andy06shake


You may want to read the entire article...

reply to post by HunkaHunka


Link is not working for me right now, probobly because im on the tablet(error 404). I take it its the 15% surcharge on outside the country transactions that i missed?

I think this practice is focused more on import tariffs than taxes. At least that is how I read it.Trying to boost the internal economy. Without actually SAYING the word tariff of course.

reply to post by HunkaHunka


I still prefer cash!

I'd take payment in cash above any other type of payment unless its a huge amount of cash that i'd need it transfered!!

Hey HunkaHunka;

A long time ago, mid to late 90's, something similar happened in the Caribbean banking sector. To crack down on "tax cheats" the IRS struck a deal with Caribbean banks and the major credit card companies to report all transactions on foreign-owned accounts when purchases were made inside the United States. i.e., the money was "offshore", but the account owners were using credit cards to spend the money in the US, skipping the whole 'income declaration' thing.

I used to get some of those "PT" (permanent traveler or permanent tourist, whatever it meant), they had some advisories to their offshore clientele to avoid certain credit cards issued by various Caribbean banks for those reasons - they were reporting all transactions straight to the U.S. gov.

Yeah, it's not really a simple matter.
On one hand, tax evasion here is rampant in the upper-middle and all-the-way-upper classes, entire high-profile residential complexes have been found to be declared as "unused land" to tax authorities in order to pay the lowest tax rate.
On the other hand, that's gonna make my steam library kinda stalled...

If they can crack down (as they are doing) on high-profile tax evaders with this then I'm all for it... (the tracking of credit cards)
For the things you don't want to b tracked we still have cash.

I'm not very fond of that 15% flat tax though...
I don't get why they don't implement this kind of taxes in a gradual way (so for example, a transaction of less than say 2000 usd receives 5% tax while another one of more than 10.000 usd receives 20% tax.)

FWIW
I just read that they are going to establish a monthly tax return (is that how you call it?) for public and private employees only, regarding the taxation on transactions with credit cards..