MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Milei reshapes Tax Bureau, blends it with Customs

The move entails a 15% staff downsizing and a significant salary cut for the higher-ranking officials, explained Adorni

The Argentine Government of President Javier Milei announced Monday that it was dissolving the Federal Administration of Public Revenues (AFIP), which is to be replaced by a simplified agency known as ARCA which will also assume Customs functions.

 “This step is essential to dismantling the unnecessary bureaucracy that has hindered the economic and commercial freedom of the Argentine people,” Casa Rosada said in a statement. The creation of ARCA seeks the reduction of the State, the elimination of unnecessary positions, the professionalization of the entity, the destruction of corrupt circuits, and the improvement in the efficiency of collection and customs control, eliminating the privileges of the past and optimizing public management, it was also explained.

“The Government announces to you, very happily, that as of today the Federal Agency of Public Revenues, better known as AFIP, will cease to exist,” Presidential Spokesman Manuel Adorni said in his usual press briefing. ARCA stands for Customs Control and Collection Agency, Adorni also explained at Casa Rosada. Heading it will be Florencia Misrahi.

The new changes mean “a simplified structure” where “the upper structures, the political caste, will be reduced by 45% and the lower structure by 31%, that is to say, in total 34% of the public positions will be eliminated,” elaborated Adorni as he highlighted the significant reduction in wages.

“In addition, some 3,100 employees who entered during the last government and who we understand did so in an irregular manner will be relocated,” said Adorni. According to Buenos Aires media elaborating on this point, 3,155 state workers will be leaving the agency, a 15% staff downsizing representing savings worth AR$ 6.4 billion (around US$ 5.33 million, at the unofficial rate) a year.

“The decision was taken to stop charging the so-called 'hierarchy account,'” Adorni also explained. The AFIP CEO was getting over AR$ 30 million per month, and the AFIP directors more than AR$ 17 million,“ the Spokesman also pointed out. From now on, these officials ”will be paid salaries equivalent or comparable to those earned by ministers and secretaries of State,“ he added while recalling AFIP's nefarious reputation as a political cash register due to which ”as we all know, many Argentines have been subjected to absolutely immoral persecutions.“

”That Argentina of fiscal voracity is over. What belongs to each Argentinean is his and no one else's. No State bureaucrat has the right to do so. No State bureaucrat has any reason to delegate to himself the power to tell an Argentine what to do with his property,“ Adorni went on.

As President Milei said during his inauguration, ”Liberalism is the unrestricted respect for the life project of others based on the principle of non-aggression, in defense of life, property, and freedom,“ Adorni insisted.

”Liberalism is what led us to be one of the main powers in the world at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. We want to go toward that Argentina. Without AFIP, without INADI [anti-discrimination institute], and without any other agency that curtails the freedom of good people,” he noted.