Since the Government established an additional rate of 7.5% of the Country Tax for the import of non-excepted goods and inputs, many business chambers warned that they were going to have to transfer this cost to the final prices. However, a detailed analysis by the Ministry of Commerce shows that the increase in the tax had an impact of 1.2% on average in the costs of the main 36 mass consumption companiesaffecting them marginally in their cost structure.
The survey is based on data from the Import System of the Argentine Republic (SIRA) and it was carried out by the Directorate of Policies for the Development of the Internal Market of the Secretary of Commerce in charge of Matías Tombolini.
The study shows that the 36 mass consumption companies that represent 72% of national consumption (food and beverages, personal care and household cleaning), they had variations of between 0.1% and 4.3% in their cost structure.
In this regard, a source from the Ministry of Commerce indicated to Ambit that “The data indicates that it is not justified to transfer the entire price tax to consumers.”
Specifically, the study showed that the additional 7.5% does not have a significant impact on the cost structure of companies. That is why the Secretariat estimates that the transfer to prices of said measure should not be significant.
The same sources indicated that the scope of the fiscal measure was analyzed taking as data the average time that companies have to access foreign currency, production costs and imports at average prices for each year.
In this way, the calculation was made on the impact on the costs of the inputs imported by the companies, as well as the imported inputs purchased locally. This methodology allowed to the Secretary of Commerce to carry out a first analysis on how the Country Tax affects the main suppliers of mass consumption.
Source: Ambito