ARGENTINA: Education to Overcome Tradition of Tax Evasion

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Dec 30 2005 (IPS) - A novel plan for tax education in Argentina is using theatre, puppets, educational games, entertainment centres, and competitions to teach youngsters about the importance of paying taxes to finance and preserve what belongs to everybody. They are all useful methods, according to those in charge of the programme.

The Federal Administration of Public Revenue (AFIP) started a teacher training programme in 2000, but in the last few years has branched out into informal education. This new plan has reached 1.5 million children all over the country, its coordinator Andrea Vilardebó, who has a degree in education, told IPS.

Targeting children and young people in order to “win them over to the cause” is important in a country where tax evasion is estimated at 50 percent. Similar projects are under way in other Latin American countries where there is “little to no tax culture,” Vilardebó explained.

In order to share experiences, the First International Seminar on Tax Education was held in Buenos Aires in October. It was organised by AFIP and the Inter-American Centre of Tax Administrations (CIAT), and was attended by experts from 18 Latin American countries and Spain.

The organisers got in touch with similar projects in Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico and Colombia, among others, and became aware of the same kind of problems over the care and maintenance of public goods.

“The aim is to create a new culture in which children will understand why taxes are paid and what the money is spent on, so that they understand that public things aren’t free things that don’t belong to anybody, but that they belong to everybody, and maintaining them must be part of a collective effort,” the expert emphasised.

As well as courses for teachers, the plan includes travelling childrens’ theatre to be performed in schools and public squares. The plays revolve around issues involving taxes, the defence of public goods, and the importance of living by certain rules.

The programme has also developed board games for different ages, including treasure hunts, labyrinths and memory games. Riddles, comic strips published in high circulation children’s magazines, and computer games have also been designed. There are drawing competitions, too, with attractive prizes for different ages.

“We are trying to enhance the idea of the State, which after the privatisations (of public service companies) in the 1990s lost a lot of its prestige and identity, and to generate confidence in the payment of taxes,” explained Vilardebó. She said that the biggest obstacle to overcome was corruption.

“Why should we pay, if they steal it all?” is the question most asked by adults, who also receive tax education classes. “The children tell us what they hear at home, for instance that tax collectors ‘are all a bunch of thieves’,” she commented.

When this happens, the agents explain that there are 20,000 employees at AFIP, of whom some may be dishonest, as in society at large. They also inform the children about the administrative channels for denouncing inspectors who ask for a bribe, say, to the authorities.

Since it started, the programme has trained 7,300 teachers who have attended workshops and courses. The teachers gain career points for participating, and receive teaching materials – notebooks and board games – for their pupils. Through these teachers, tax culture themes have been brought to the attention of 230,000 schoolchildren.

However, when the programme was extended to markets, public walks and entertainment parks all over the country, AFIP was able to reach a much wider audience.

At present there is a tax education centre in the Abasto Children’s Museum, located in a Buenos Aires shopping centre, where children can play at being customs inspectors, or decide what to do with money collected in taxes.

A similar game can be found in the “Children’s Republic” in the town of Gonnet in the province of Buenos Aires. The park has child-scale replicas of the buildings housing the country’s main institutions, now including AFIP.

The programme has also found niches at Marine World (Mundo Marino), a park on the coast at San Clemente del Tuyú, in Buenos Aires province; at “Invention Island” in Rosario in the northeastern province of Santa Fe; and at the Children’s Book Fair held every year in Buenos Aires.