García Linera considers that a new banking tax would help to face the economic crisis

The former Vice President of the State, Álvaro García Linera, in an interview with the Argentine news agency ‘Telam’, stated that new progressive governments should take bolder and more radical measures in these times of pandemic and economic crisis. In this sense, he suggested a bank tax taking into account that -in his opinion- they made a lot of money during the health crisis.

“This new wave (of progressives) is going to be forced to take on bolder challenges to overcome favorably the effects of this economic and medical crisis. Circumstances will gradually force leadership to undertake a series of more radical transformations, because the social cost of the economic crisis and the medical crisis is too great”, said García Linera.

Considers that one of the appropriate measures to face this crisis could be a tax reform that contemplates a tax on banking.

“There must be a new role for the State: more daring in terms of redistribution of wealth and burdens, which also leads to a more daring tax reform. Some countries have implementing taxes on wealth, great wealth, and that is a good path that perhaps will have to be explored a little more,” he said.

“With taxes on banking, the time has come, because it is a sector that has gained a lot in the crisis and that it must share the burden of responsibilities with the rest of the population,” García Linera said.

See the full interview:

reactions

The former vice presidential candidate, Samuel Doria Medina, immediately tweeted about García Linera’s proposal, indicating that the former vice president is “in a radical pose “for export”but it should be better informed”.

“There is already the extraordinary tax on banks that you propose. In addition to being uninformed, clueless. The private sector needs to be boosted, not terrorized”, Doria Medina wrote.

The tweet: