The Chamber of Deputies gave half a sanction to the bill of the monotribute techwhich will allow independent workers to export services for up to $2,500 per month, and receive the dollars in your bank account, without having to settle them at the official exchange rate of $200. Against the initiative, knowledge economy companies will ask the Senate not to move forward with voting on the law.
Luis Galeazziexecutive director of Argencon, the chamber that brings together the large knowledge economy companies, such as Free Market and Globant, explained the reasons why they are against it: “It creates a problem of salary competitiveness. With the monotribute, a professional will be able to collect US$2,500 per month to the free dollar of $400, when companies cannot pay those salaries, because they export to the official dollar of $200. The professional will have an incentive to escape ”.
From Argencon they had already raised the disagreement with the Ministry of Economy. The last response was that the issue is now in the legislative sphere. For this reason, entrepreneurs will advance in two ways: on the one hand, will ask the Senate “not to move forward” with the approval. Or propose a second option: “There are liberal professions for which it could be used, be it a journalist, or a gamer. But the problem is the structure of the knowledge economy industries, that universe should be separated”, added Galeazzi.
After the half sanction of the monotributo tech in the Lower Housedeputy itai hagman pointed out against the owner of Mercado Libre, Marcos Galperín: “Despite the boycott by Galperín and Juntos por el Cambio, we achieved half a sanction, to accompany small technological contributors. Why were they opposed? Because they are going to have to launder or pay the kids better, ”he wrote on his twitter. Legislative sources from the Frente de Todos assured that there were “direct calls” from important businessmen in the sector to JxC deputies so that they would not approve the project. Although there was consensus in the committee meetings, JxC voted against or abstained.
For his part, the SME entrepreneur Gustavo Guaragna, CEO of Snoop Consulting, said that the law could mean that “between 15,000 and 20,000 people go from formal to informal employment.” In addition, he explained that those who get jobs abroad are not junior profiles recently received from a programming course, but “the tip of the pyramid”, senior profiles difficult to find, with extensive experience, in the software sector.
When asked if companies could raise wages to avoid the “virtual brain drain”, Guaragna explained: “2,500 dollars a parallel is almost $1 million that the worker has left in his hand if he works abroad. If a company wanted to equate it, it should add the prepay, retirement, social charges and income tax. It is almost $1.8 million, unfeasible for an SME”. For this reason, Guaragna, who is also a member of the Chamber of Software Companies (Cessi) assured that The most affected will be the SMEs.
For this reason, the businessmen add that the measure could harm not only sectorally, but also at the macroeconomic level: “A 30-year-old who becomes a monotributista to collect in dollars cannot tell him anything because he is looking at his economy. But the systematic migration of companies is negative, because innovation, high-value projects, are structured in ecosystems, in sharing knowledge and making it more sophisticated, not in individual work”, Galeazzi considered.
The defense of the Knowledge Economy Secretariat, headed by Ariel Sujarchukis that the monotribute tech it is a “legal tool”, which what it does is “recognize” a reality that already exists, and that they are professionals who work abroad and are paid informally. The Secretary of Industry, Ignacio de Mendiguren, assured that if this situation were whitewashed, there could be a millionaire inflow of foreign currency through the formal market, of around US$1,800 million.
In the same line, Stephen Sargiottoa member of the Computer Union Association, also defended the measure: “It seems good to us because today the workers who get paid abroad do not find a good offer here, so this makes it easier for them to launder their income, and also have pension contributions and the social work”.
When asked about the impact that this could have on the SME network, Sargiotto replied: “The best solution would be for there to be no exchange rate gap, or for companies to have better conditions. What this does is regulate something that already happens. In a more globalized and digitalized post-pandemic world, it will be difficult for SMEs to compete with foreigners, but for that there should be other solutions. We, from the union, ask that there be more SMEs in the knowledge economy regime, which is concentrated in large companies”.
In addition, it coincided with the fact that a “migratory boom” monotribute tech would be negative, but at the same time he assured that there are fears even among those who work abroad, in the doubt of what will happen if they begin to “launder” income from one day to the next. “There is a genuine concern in many, but at the same time someone who has such a good income wants to know how to justify it, to use a credit card, or buy a car,” she added.
Another of the arguments that the Ministry of Knowledge Economy assures is that companies can access dollars without liquidating them for 30% of their incremental exports, and allocate them to pay salaries in dollars. Asked about this argument, Galeazzi replied: “It only applies to incremental exports, but also not all companies export, and with that 30% you don’t get a base to distribute to the entire wage bill. The two proposals are not equivalent.
Source: Ambito
