Mattress dollars: Congress delays key legislation, and the new income tax regime is moving more slowly than the government expected.

On June 5, the government introduced a "principle of tax innocence" bill in Congress to provide legal backing for measures that facilitate the use of undeclared dollars and update tax-related criminal thresholds. However, more than two months later, the initiative has not begun to be discussed, and its discussion has been postponed , at least until after the legislative elections.

The text, promoted by the head of the Argentine Federal Administration of Community Resources (ARCA), Juan Pazo , and the president of the Budget Committee, José Luis Espert , proposes reducing the statute of limitations for tax evasion to three years, limiting the number of criminal charges filed by the tax authorities, and significantly raising the minimum amounts for establishing crimes . For example, the threshold for simple evasion would increase from $1.5 million to $100 million, which would leave fewer than 200 of the current 6,652 charges pending.

The Casa Rosada sees this legal framework as an essential step to consolidate the measures that seek to "remonetize" the economy with foreign currency that Argentines hold outside the formal market. Some provinces even announced their early adoption of the scheme, but the parliamentary debate was sidelined by the campaign.

Associated with this package, the Executive Branch launched a simplified income tax regime in June for individuals with incomes up to $1 billion and assets up to $10 billion. According to Pazo, only 10,000 taxpayers registered . This is a tiny number compared to the potential population, which, according to private estimates, exceeds 900,000 people, including self-employed workers and employees.

For specialists like Sebastián Domínguez , CEO of SDC Asesores Tributarios, the low level of adherence is explained by the lack of official details: " The ARCA microsite doesn't have complete information for the sworn declaration. Most people are waiting for definitions, and there's until June 2026 to opt in ," he indicated.

Another pending issue is the inclusion of foreign income. An initial decree limited the scheme to income from Argentine sources, but the draft did not repeat that restriction. The regulations to incorporate them are still being prepared, although the government admits that controlling such income is more complex. This is particularly true for financial and investment transactions that taxpayers maintain outside the country, often in cryptocurrencies or stocks, whose returns are considered foreign income and would be excluded until the new regulation is published.

Despite the authorization for all businesses to accept payments in dollars, usage in retail transactions has yet to show a sustained increase. Data from the Central Bank indicates that in June, 1.5 million transactions totaling USD 2.373 billion were recorded , a 46% year-over-year increase. However, this is below the figures for February—prior to the implementation of the measure—when there were 1.9 million transactions totaling USD 2.947 billion.

The Executive branch insists that this is key to providing certainty and accelerating the circulation of dollars "from the cushion" into the formal economy. However, the delay in Congress and regulatory indefinitions are slowing down the process . Meanwhile, the Kirchnerist opposition maintains its resistance to the regulation, despite the fact that its approval could unlock tax relief measures and reduce litigation.