Taxes. Reduction of withholdings: tax relief or a patch?

The Government has decided on a partial reduction of export duties for meat, corn, sorghum, sunflower, soy, and soy derivatives. In the case of meat and sunflower, the reduction was 25%, while for corn, sorghum, soy, and soy derivatives it is 20%. The announcement included the commitment not to reverse the measure and to deepen it, up to total elimination, when there is fiscal space. Export duties are highly distortive taxes. They penalize production, discourage investment, and exports. However, they play a central role in the national fiscal structure: they are simple to collect, relatively harder to evade, and provide immediate and predictable income. This duality explains why, although there is consensus that they should be eliminated in the medium term, no government this century has managed to replace them in a sustained way. In the current context, with public accounts still in the process of being organized, the desirable elimination of export duties seems incompatible with ...