2. The Argentine Federal Tax Sharing Scheme
In this section we first briefly summarize the institutional development of fiscal federalism in Argentina,
focusing on the federal tax sharing scheme that was launched in 1935. We then describe the ways in
which the scheme has changed over time.
Following Porto (1990), we can divide the history of fiscal federalism in Argentina into three distinct
periods: (i) the division of tax sources; (ii) competitive federalism; and (iii) the federal tax sharing scheme.
The first period goes from 1853 –when the modern Argentine Constitution was promulgated- to 1890.
During this period, there was a constitutional mandate for a division of tax revenue sources between the
national government and the provinces. The national government collected taxes only on foreign trade,
while the provinces collected domestic taxes on consumption and production. Between 1890 and 1934,
there was a period of “competitive federalism” in which both the national government and the provinces
collected taxes on consumption and production. Until that time, intergovernmental transfers had been
very limited in scale and were confined to what are nowadays called “national treasury contributions”
(aportes del tesoro nacional), which are discretionary transfers from the national government to the
provinces. The last period, from 1935 until the present day, started with the creation of the federal tax
sharing scheme (coparticipación federal de impuestos). Under this scheme, specified types of taxes have
been centralized and are thus collected by the national government, which then redistributes the
revenues among the provinces