CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

The matter of taxes is pending discussion in Argentina. Conforming to the dominant economic paradigm in the region (and the world), public spending has been prioritized as a tool of distributive policy, sidelining the tax systems potential. There has not been a consistent, planned policy of tax reform in the country, but partial modifications and the creation of specific taxes responding to situations determined by fiscal needs or the pressure of sectorial interests. Perhaps the main reason for the absence of the possibility of fiscal reform in the current public policy agenda is that conjunction of diverse interests and the lack of political will to confront them. The purpose of this study is to encourage this debate to be taken up, and to make a relevant contribution to the evaluation of the implications on equality of current tax structure and potential reforms. In particular, this study analyzes the impact the current Argentine tax system has over gender equality in two dimensions: the income tax and indirect taxation (basically, consumption tax). The study is organized in the following way: in the first section we present the Argentine context, giving an outline of its economic and tax structure, and the key dimensions for the analysis of gender (in)equality. In the second section, we present analysis of personal income taxation. In the third section, we present the analysis of the fiscal incidence of indirect taxes. In the fourth section, we present the results of a policy simulation, proposing to transform the Argentine tax system in a positive way from the point of view of gender equality. In the fifth section we summarize fundamental conclusions and systemize some policy suggestions arising from the principal lessons learned from the study.

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