Rural Tax Evasion in Argentina: An Analysis of Tax Evasion Mechanisms and Social Relationships in the Córdoba Grain Market

Abstract

This paper uses a theoretical perspective based on the ideas of Foucault, critical criminology, and rural criminology, to examine how social relations influenced tax evasion mechanisms in agriculture in the province of Córdoba, Argentina. The paper’s main contribution is to show how tax evasion mechanisms are deeply rooted in social relationships developed in the grain market. Through the analysis of thirty interviews, official statistics of tax evasion convictions, and administrative resolutions issued by the national tax agency, I argue that severe formal controls were unsuccessful in eradicating tax evasion because normative changes could not abruptly annul the social relations that made tax evasion in agriculture possible. On the contrary, tax evasion persisted, although some evasion mechanisms were left aside and new ones were created. Thus, it is necessary to stress the importance of a paper that studies economic crimes in geographic areas outside the global north, such as rural Argentina.