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Resistance Without Revolt: Shaping a Tax Culture in Modern Argentina, 1930–1955

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 June 2013

José Antonio Sánchez Román
José Antonio Sánchez Román*
Affiliation:
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
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Journal of Policy History , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , July 2013 , pp. 422 - 443
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Copyright © Donald Critchlow and Cambridge University Press 2013 

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References

NOTES

1. In Argentine historiography, most references to tax issues are embedded in general reflections on the economic history of the nation. Two exceptions that deal with the political and societal implications of fiscal policies are Caravaca, Jimena, ¿Liberalismo o intervencionismo? Debates sobre el rol del Estado en la economía argentina, 1870–1935 (Buenos Aires, 2011)Google Scholar; and Cortés Conde, Roberto, Poder, Estado y política: Impuestos y sociedad en la Argentina y en los Estados Unidos (Buenos Aires, 2011).Google Scholar Nonetheless, the former discusses taxation within a broader exploration of the debates on the role of the state in economic policy and the latter focuses on the nineteenth century. I have provided a political history of taxation in Argentina in more recent times in Sánchez Román, José Antonio, Taxation and Society in Twentieth-Century Argentina (New York, 2012).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. See Daunton, Martin, Trusting Leviatán: The Politics of Taxation in Britain, 1799–1914 (Cambridge, 2001), and Just Taxes: The Politics of Taxation in Britain, 1914–1979 (Cambridge, 2002).Google Scholar

3. Levi, Margaret, Of Rule and Revenue (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1988), 10–13.Google Scholar

4. Nonetheless, for an interesting cultural analysis of taxes, see Webber, Carolyn and Widalsky, Aaron, A History of Taxation and Expenditure in the Western World (New York, 1986).Google Scholar

5. See, for instance, Andrien, Kenneth, “Economic Crisis, Taxes, and the Quito Insurrection of 1765,” Past and Present (November 1990): 104–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. Ángel Centeno, Miguel, Blood and Debt: War and the Nation-State in Latin America (University Park, Pa., 2002), 6 and 130–37.Google Scholar

7. Cortés Conde, Roberto, Dinero, deuda y crisis: Evolución fiscal y monetaria en la Argentina, 1862–1890 (Buenos Aires, 1989).Google Scholar Of course, the tariff was a common fiscal instrument worldwide in the nineteenth century, but Latin American countries (and the United States as well) had some peculiarities that led them to resort to this kind of tax with greater intensity than in other parts of the world. These were new nations, with a lean treasure, a weak bureaucratic development, and a meager role of the state in the economy. Many of them inherited a colonial tradition of taxing foreign trade as the main source of revenue. Moreover, in cases such as Argentina, with scarce population and abundant land, it made more economic sense to tax trade in the port than to try to tax people or their activities. See the analysis and interesting international comparison with other regions in Coatsworth, John H. and Williamson, Jeffrey, “Always Protectionist? Latin American Tariffs from Independence to Great Depression,” Journal of Latin American Studies 36 (2004): 205–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8. On tax reform in the 1920s, see Román, Sánchez, “Economic Elites, Regional Cleavages, and the First Attempts at Introducing the Income Tax in Argentina,” Hispanic American Historical Review (May 2009): 253–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9. On the Great Depression in Argentina, see Pablo Gerchunoff, Juan and Llach, Lucas, El ciclo de la ilusión y el desencanto: Un siglo de políticas económicas argentinas (Buenos Aires, 1998), 112–20.Google Scholar

10. La Vanguardia, 23 January 1932, 1; 15 February 1932, 5; 23 February 1932, 6.

11. White to Secretary of State, 12 February 1932, 12, Buenos Aires, General Conditions of the Argentine Republic/74, M1230, R3, 835.00, NARA (National Archives of the United States).

12. Review of the River Plate, 5 February 1932, 7–9.

13. White to Secretary of State, 23 March 1932 18, Buenos Aires, General Conditions of the Argentine Republic/77, M1230, R3, 835.00, NARA.

14. “Torturas e impuestos,” La Vanguardia, 26 February 1932, 1. See also “Los impuestos de la dictadura,” La Vanguardia, 13 March 1932, 1.

15. Diario de Sesiones, Congreso de Diputados (DSCD) 1, 19 April 1932, 673.

16. La Vanguardia, 23 May 1932, 9 and 24 May 1932, 9.

17. Bliss to Secretary of State, 23 September 1932, General Conditions of the Argentine Republic/90, NA, M1230, R4, 835.00, NARA.

18. Note sent to Congress by the UIA, DSCD 7, 1 December 1932, 145.

19. See Buenos Aires Herald, 16 September 1933; La Nación, 9 September 1933, and the protest sent to Congress by commercial associations from all over the country in DSCD 1, 11 May 1933, 126; 12 May 1933, 151; DSCD 3, 31 August 1933, 643; DSCD 4, 6 September 1933, 70.

20. “Memorial de la Comisión Popular Pro Derogación de los Impuestos a las Transacciones y Réditos Comerciales,” sent to Congress, DSCD 1, 12 May 1933, 168–69. See the list of associations belonging to the commission on pages 173–74.

21. Ibid., 171.

22. Weddel to Secretary of State, 3 November 1933, General Conditions of the Argentine Republic/120, M1230, R4, 835.00, NARA.

23. DSCD 6, 29–30 September 1934, 605–8. The government acknowledged its defeat in Congress: “The difficulties . . . in the application of the tax on transactions due to its impact on retail commerce are the origin of the conception of the sales tax,” DSCD 7, 19 December 1934, 776.

24. Buenos Aires Herald, 16 September 1933; see also DSCD 7, 1 December 1932, 145.

25. Alvaredo, Facundo, “The Rich in Argentina over the Twentieth Century, 1932–2004,” in Top Incomes over the Twentieth Century Vol. II: A Global View, ed. Atkinson, A. and Piketti, T. (Oxford, 2010), 259–60.Google Scholar

26. For samples of business’ opinion on these issues, see Memoria de la Bolsa de Comercio de Buenos Aires, 1933, 29–30; 1936, 9–10.

27. Sidicaro, Ricardo, Los Tres Peronismos: Estado y poder económico, 1946–55/ 1973–76/ 1989–99(Buenos Aires, 2002), 29–30.Google Scholar

28. On “selective incentives,” see Levi, Of Rule and Revenue, 64.

29. See Dirección General del Impuesto a los Réditos (DGIR), Memoria 1940 , 7, 10; and Argentina, República, de Hacienda, Ministerio, Memoria del Departamento de Hacienda correspondiente al año 1940, Buenos Aires, 1940, 1:184–5.Google Scholar

30. DSCD 1, 30 May 1941, 82; 11 June 1941, 399; 2 June 1941, 896.

31. On the entrepreneurs’ complaints, see “Consideraciones sobre los proyectos financieros e impositivos a estudio del Honorable Congreso de la Nación.” (Bolsa de Comercio de Buenos Aires, Sociedad Rural Argentina, Unión Industrial Argentina, CACIP), Anales de la Sociedad Rural Argentina (ASRA), September 1942, 716. For an analysis of the conflict, see Román, Sánchez, “Shaping Taxation: Economic Elites and Fiscal Decision-Making in Argentina, 1920–1945,” Journal of Latin American Studies 40 (2008): 98–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32. “Consideraciones sobre los proyectos,” 745.

33. DGIR, Memoria Año 1942, 27.

34. ASRA, September 1942, 717.

35. An article published in the conservative daily La Nación and in the publication of the Argentine Rural Society claimed against “a bureaucracy that has everyday bigger attributions, helped by experts, frequently theoreticians with biased and artificial orientations.” See ASRA, February 1942, 151.

36. In 1936, a U.S. diplomat, speaking of a recent tax reform that included improvements for the lower income brackets, stated: “Clearly these unexpected tax reductions are a further shrewd move for public support of a government that has become increasingly unpopular due to its interventions in several provinces, the highly irregular provincial elections in the Province of Buenos Aires, and the damaging episodes of last July during the Senate meat investigation.” Cox to Secretary of State, 4 January 1936, Buenos Aires, General Conditions of the Argentine Republic, M 1230, R 20, 835.5123/26, NARA.

37. In 1935, Argentine GDP attained the level of the 1920s. The second wave of the international depression affected Argentina in 1937 as well, although not as deeply as the first one. della Paolera, Gerardo and Taylor, Alan, Straining at the Anchor: The Argentine Currency Board and the Search for Macroeconomic Stability, 1880–1935 (Chicago, 2001), 201–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar; andGerchunoff, andLlach, , El ciclo de la ilusión, 139–40.Google Scholar

38. See, for instance, the impact of Roosevelt’s policies in Argentina in Laura Ruiz Jiménez, “Peronism and Anti-Imperialism in the Argentine Press: ‘Braden or Perón’ Was Also ‘Is Roosevelt, Perón,’” Journal of Latin American Studies 30 (1998): 551–71.Google Scholar

39. On the coup, see Halperin Donghi, Tulio, La república imposible (1930–1945) (Buenos Aires, 2004), 267–68 and 290–92.Google Scholar

40. ASRA, September 1942, 715, 718.

41. Argentina, Nación, Gobierno de la, Dictamen de la Comisión Honoraria Asesora del Gobierno Nacional para el estudio de los problemas fiscales (Buenos Aires, 1944), 28.Google Scholar

42. Ibid., 1.

43. Alvaredo, “The Rich,” 268.

44. Carlos Torre, Juan, “Introducción a los años peronistas,” in Los años peronistas (1943–1955), vol. 8, Nueva Historia Argentina, ed.Torre, (Buenos Aires, 2002), 24–27.Google Scholar

45. SeeGerchunoff, andLlach, , El ciclo de la ilusión, 181–82.Google Scholar

46. Oszlak, Oscar, “Inflación y política fiscal en Argentina: El impuesto a los réditos en el período 1956–1965,” Instituto Torcuato di Tella, Documento de Trabajo (Buenos Aires, September 1970), 34.Google Scholar

47. The New Income Tax Laws of Argentina with Their Regulations and a Complete Alphabetical Index (Buenos Aires, 1949), 49.

48. The opposition asserted that Stock Market businessmen were the main beneficiaries of the measure. See DSCD 3, 19 September 1951, 1985. After the fall of Perón, critics insisted on the socially regressive character of this policy. See Macon, Jorge, Las finanzas públicas argentinas: Período 1950–1980 (Buenos Aires, 1985), 107–8.Google Scholar

49. Argentina, República, Ministerio de Hacienda de la Nación, Sexta Conferencia de Ministros de Hacienda (Buenos Aires, 1951), 148.Google Scholar

50. Argentina, República, Ministerio de Hacienda de la Nación, Tercera Conferencia de Ministros de Hacienda (Buenos Aires, 1948), 128.Google Scholar

51. Ibid.

52. Boletín de la Dirección General Impositiva (BDGI), January 1955, 27, and my own estimate based on Diéguez, Héctor and Petrecolla, Alberto, “La distribución funcional del ingreso y el sistema previsional en la Argentina, 1950–1972,” Desarrollo Económico 55 (1974): 433.Google Scholar

53. BDGI, May 1957, figs. 12 and 14.

54. Unlike what happened in many Western countries, where labor and business reached agreements based on wage restriction and progressive taxation. See, among many others, Trends Toward Corporatist Intermediation, ed. Philippe C. Schmitter and Gerhard Lehmbruch (Beverly Hills, Calif., 1979); Berger, Suzanne, ed., Organizing Interests in Western Europe (Cambridge, 1981)Google Scholar; and Maier, Charles S., “Preconditions for Corporatism,” in Order and Conflict in Contemporary Capitalism, ed. Goldthorpe, John H. (Oxford, 1984).Google Scholar

55. See Plotkin, Mariano, Mañana en San Perón: Propaganda, rituales políticos y educación en el régimen peronista (1946–1955) (Buenos Aires, 1993).Google Scholar

56. Macon, Las finanzas públicas argentinas, 104.

57. Ibid., 152; Jarach, Dino, Problemas económico-financieros de la seguridad social (Buenos Aires, 1994).Google Scholar

58. Similar dilemmas arose in Western Europe as well. As Webber and Wildavsky put it in A History of Taxation, referring to Denmark: “Supporters of the social-welfare state are in the uncomfortable position of choosing a progressive income tax, which they probably cannot raise sufficiently to pay for what they want, or regressive Social Security and sales tax” (533).

59. Torre, and Pastoriza, Elisa, “La democratización del bienestar,” in Los años peronistas, 288–90.Google Scholar

60. BDGI, April 1955, 467.

61. Ibid.

62. Marcos Giménez Zapiola and Carlos M. Leguizamón, “La concertación peronista de 1955: El Congreso de la Productividad,” 337–41, and Louise Doyon, “La organización del movimiento sindical (1946–1955),” 191–94; both in La formación del sindicalismo peronista, ed. Torre (Buenos Aires, 1988), and James, Daniel, Resistance and Integration: Peronism and the Argentine Working Class, 1946–1976 (New York, 1988), 55–57.Google Scholar

63. James, Resistance and Integration, 89–90.

64. See a complex discussion of these issues inGerchunoff, andLlach, , Entre la equidad y el crecimiento: Ascenso y caída de la economía argentina, 1880–2002 (Buenos Aires, 2004).Google Scholar

65. Gaggero, Horacio and Garro, Alicia, “La política de seguridad social peronista,” in Sueños de bienestar en la Nueva Argentina: Estado y políticas publicas durante el peronismo 1946–1955, ed. Berrotarán, Patricia, Jáuregui, Aníbal, and Rougier, Marcelo(Buenos Aires, 2004), 184.Google Scholar

66. Alvaredo, “The Rich,” 262–63.

67. In 1954, more than 5 million Argentineans were wage earners working in factories or in the service sector. SeeDoyon, , Perón y los trabajadores: Los orígenes del sindicalismo peronista, 1943–1955 (Buenos Aires, 2006), 245. This was an important number, but since total tax units were around 10 million, many potential taxpayers were not filing their returns.Google Scholar

68. See Steinmo, Sven, Taxation and Democracy: Swedish, British, and American Approaches to Financing the Modern State (New Haven, 1993), 41Google Scholar; and Jones, Carolyn C., “Mass-based Income Taxation: Creating a Taxpayer Culture, 1940–1952,” in Funding the Modern American State, 1941–1995, ed. Brownlee, Elliot, 129–31 (Cambridge, 1996).Google Scholar

69. Torre and Pastoriza, “La democratización,” 275–76.

70. Surrey, Stanley S. and Oldman, Oliver, “Report of a Preliminary Survey of the Tax System of Argentina,” pt. 1, Public Finance/Finances Publiques 16, no. 2 (1961): 174–75.Google Scholar

71. Ibid., 173.

72. Conde, Cortés, La economía política de la Argentina en el siglo XX (Buenos Aires: 2005), 186.Google Scholar

73. See the suggestive analysis of Donghi, Halperin in La larga agonía de la Argentina peronista (Buenos Aires, 1994), 26.Google Scholar

74. Surrey and Oldman, “Report of a Preliminary Survey of the Tax System in Argentina,” 163 and 168.

75. Ibid., 170.

76. Revista de Ciencias Económicas 58 (March–April 1956): 144.

77. See, for instance, an amnesty to capitals sent abroad in DSCD 2, 10–11 August 1950, 1752.

78. Gerchunoff and Llach, El ciclo de la ilusión, 185 and 187.

79. Doyon, “La formación del sindicalismo peronista,” in Los años peronistas, 375.

80. BDGI, August 1954, 12.

81. Ibid.

82. For a discussion on adversarial and cooperative tax states, see Lieberman, Evan S., Race and Regionalism in the Politics and Taxation in Brazil and South Africa (Cambridge, 2003), 59–60.Google Scholar

83. Centeno, Blood and Debt, 6, 130–37, studies the historical roots of this phenomenon in the nineteenth century.

84. Hirschman, Albert O., Exit, Voic, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States (Cambridge, Mass., 1970), 33.Google Scholar

85. For the classical account of the process of state building in Argentina, see Oszlak, Oscar, La formación del Estado argentino: Orden, progreso y organización nacional (Buenos Aires, 2004).Google Scholar See also Donghi, Halperin, Proyecto y construcción de una nación (Argentina 1846–1880) (Caracas, 1982).Google Scholar