The Minister of Modernization considers that the public sector must also be willing to innovate. Congress will soon debate a bill for residents to receive salaries in cryptocurrencies.
Martín Güemes, the Minister of Modernization of the Province of Salta, Argentina, stated that they need to address the absence of regulations on cryptocurrencies. For this reason, he believes that the national government must adapt the regulatory system to include digital currencies.
Güemes said that local governments are mere spectators regarding new technologies, which he thinks offer great possibilities. Likewise, he criticized the state as it maintains an active role in prevailing tax collection thinking.
The Salta official stated that the missing regulations should protect consumers and investors. Additionally, he highlighted that cryptocurrencies generate much more trust than other currencies even though they are outside formal systems. He sees it as a modernization of the monetary system that reconfigures the roles occupied so far.
Argentina Seeks to Regulate Cryptocurrencies
What Martín Güemes said can serve as a trigger to analyze the state of cryptocurrencies and their regulation in Argentina. Thereon, a national deputy submitted a bill to allow citizens to receive their salaries in cryptocurrencies.
Legislator José Luis Ramón, from the province of Mendoza, introduced the initiative. It could benefit wage earners, who would not lose their purchasing power due to the devaluation of the Argentine peso (ARS). Besides, it could help those who export services abroad since they would not be obliged to convert their earnings into pesos.
Ramón trusts that his bill will advance. Additionally, he has publicly stated that the president of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, assured him that he would support the debate in Congress.
However, they have to continue waiting to see the approach of Argentina to this regulation if the state puts collection anxieties aside. Martín Güemes wrote that governments gloat when accounting for how much they would obtain to alleviate their deficits if they charged taxes on those transactions.
The minister considers that they conceived of this look from a scheme from the past and should avoid it. At the moment, analysts report that the Argentine authorities can only apply two taxes to cryptocurrencies as assets. They are the Personal Property Tax and the Income Tax.
Relevance of Cryptocurrencies in Argentina
This moment favors cryptocurrencies as there has been an increase in Internet purchases and using means of payment on cell phones. Their appearance means an excellent opportunity for financial inclusion, expanding the offer of savings, investment and credit instruments at a lower cost.
According to Güemes, governments must analyze technical alternatives in a scenario where cybersecurity is crucial. Decentralization of financial power to a non-exponential but significant degree is inevitable. It will be impossible to stop this process, having an international and local financial system with new rules in the future.
Argentine local and subnational governments need to analyze, innovate and project opportunities in the private sector. Although technology sometimes creates huge social gaps, its trend includes efficiency and simplicity as an opportunity for inclusion and equality.
By Alexander Salazar
