Overview
- Opposition deputy Guillermo Michel calculated that the first 13 projects approved under the Régimen de Incentivo para Grandes Inversiones (RIGI) imply about US$1.837 billion a year in forgone tax revenue, a figure reported on Monday by multiple outlets.
- Two additional approvals have raised the validated project count to 15, which increases the nominal tax expense above Michel’s 13-project estimate.
- Michel projected that the proposed Super RIGI, which would cut the corporate income tax rate to 15% and employer contributions to 10%, would raise the fiscal cost to about 1.27 percentage points of GDP, an amount media reports equate to roughly US$8.64 billion annually under his assumptions.
- The 13 projects Michel examined total about US$27.21 billion in planned investment, are expected to create roughly 36,873 jobs and generate about US$21.006 billion in exports, with a handful of very large energy and mining projects such as Southern Energy’s GNL (≈US$15.156 billion) accounting for most of the value.
- Consultancy Paspartú and critics say program design flaws risk unnecessary giveaways because some oil and Vaca Muerta projects appear commercially viable without incentives, and the regime lacks supplier policies, R&D promotion and explicit caps on special-purpose vehicles, while the government says the benefits are needed to secure investments that would not otherwise locate in Argentina.