En Negro

[jaredwb]

And you keep trying to get me drunk!
I'm a nice person, but I do have a mind of my own and will take shit of noone, including rich expats running business .

Thanks for the offer, you seem to have good intentions.

Unless you are a really hot young woman, no need to worry about me trying to get you drunk

Seriously, no bad intentions on my side, just passionate. I'll try to tone down the "personal attacks".

 

[Ashley]

I'd say that it's definitely the employers that want the employees to work en negro and certainly not viceversa.
I think that paying tax contributions for an employee means that they effectively "lose" another 40% or so on top of the wages they have to pay that employee + the 13th month wage.
It is ludicrous to suggest that employees "want" to work en negro. I don't know anyone who works in negro (including myself at one point) who earns any more than if they were working in blanco. It only saves the employer money.
Workers employed en negro are also responsible for their own health insurance payments and pension contributions. They don't get sick pay, holidays or the 13th month salary, and if they leave their jobs/are fired they are not entitled to any payment...I don't think any employee would chose that route given the choice. And whatever the govt does or doesn't do with peoples' taxes, it is not for an employer to choose whether or not to pay them. This really needs much stricter enforcement.

 

[Johnno]

I'm just thinking - we can have a new thread based on this one now - guys who want to find hot young women in BA to get drunk lol I have to admit it, when things are quiet on the work front I do love having this forum to surf and get useful intel from... I've only been back here a month so no way am I qualified to say much about anything - I think what someone else said in another thread is probably true - you need to be here a couple of years before you start to get things figured out - I know its going to take me a while to know the ropes...

 

[citygirl]

I'd say that it's definitely the employers that want the employees to work en negro and certainly not viceversa....
It is ludicrous to suggest that employees "want" to work en negro. I don't know anyone who works in negro (including myself at one point) who earns any more than if they were working in blanco. It only saves the employer money.

That's just wrong. Of course employees working en negro "earn" more. They don't have contributions to retirement, health care, etc taken out of their salary. For example (and I'm looking at this for a current opening so these numbers are exact), if I pay an employee 5200 pesos a month gross, because this is en blanco, the employee will take home 4315 pesos after his/her mandatory witholdings. So yes, there are more than a few professional employees that don't want to be en blanco and have asked if we could pay them en negro because they would rather receive the full amount. We don't obviously.

And for employees earning over 9000 pesos a month, employers are required to withhold their personal income tax liability from their check as well to pay to the gov't. So even less money in their pocket. No more avoiding taxes.

As for the rest, I would LOVE it if more employers and employees moved to an en blanco relationship. Less burden on those employers (and it's definitely not 70%) that do things en blanco now. Hey, maybe my costs would even go down.

 

[starlucia]

It is ludicrous to suggest that employees "want" to work en negro. I don't know anyone who works in negro (including myself at one point) who earns any more than if they were working in blanco. It only saves the employer money.

Different fields, perhaps, but I know several college-educated professionals happily working en negro (tourism, consulting, tech work, teaching), and earning over twice what they did en blanco. It's no different from freelancing or self-employment in the U.S., except that here, no one fills out their 1040.

 

[French jurist]

The main difference anyway is the level of income :
- Employees paid for low wages have less the choice (they take whatever they can find)
- Employees making more indeed may prefer to get paid in black.

One thing we all agree on more or less = more controls ! And everybody will win.

One example I had mentionned in another thread :
The sister & brother running the almacen at the entrance of my gated community. They operate under the monotribute regim but this one includes a limit of like 150.000/170.000 pesos per year (don't remember).
This summer, the shop was always full and they were selling at least for 5.000 a day, they make excellent margins (prices 10/15% higher than Jumbo, and Jumbo is expensive)

They must be defrauding the Arg State by 200.000/300.000 a year minimum, plus they pay their employees in black (10$ an hour) and I can assure you that's not the choice of the employees.

Anyway, in the province, there are way much less controls regarding fiscal issues (I'd even take the risk to say it's at least 50 or even 80% less controlled than in CABA).

All it takes is political willingness

 

[Ashley]

mmm...well, maybe it depends on the profession then.
I was never given a choice as to whether I wanted to work "en blanco" or not. Neither were the people I know that also work/worked "en negro". I guess its one thing if you're offered a job in blanco and then decide that you'd rather take your employers tax/health insurance contributions as take-home pay...but it's quite another if you don't get a choice. And out of all the positions that I have applied for here (professional, graduate level jobs...about 5 in total), absolutely none of them were "en blanco" - they were all "freelance" and at pretty low wages at that.
At my current job, all of us are monotributistas...all of us are earning a pittance (Its a competitive field and I'm staying here to build up experience) and if I left tomorrow, there are loads of people who would happily fill the position.
I'm pretty sure my experiences aren't exceptional - Its up to employers to make sure that employees are well taken care of. So in my field, no...employees most certainly do not earn more!

 

[Guillo]

Also, contracting in Negro is a net win for employers. Usually, for every buck paid to the worker, he gets some fractional discount, but so does the employer. People paying en Negro usually usually keep that difference, only paying the worker what he would have paid before (workers part plus his discounts) and pocketing the rest.

 

[citygirl]

Ashley - if you were paid fully in blanco, the pittance that you are making would be a smaller pittance. That's what you're missing. And many employees don't want that. They would rather put themselves as a monotributista or work fully en negro and keep as much money in their pocket as they can. Certainly not all employees in negro are there because they choose to be but there are some who indeed, prefer it that way.

Guillo - you bring up interesting points but rest assured, not all business owners are paying en negro b/c they're ripping off the employee and busy stuffing money into their capitalist pockets I promise you, it's not nearly as black and white as you think.

I truly don't think that many employees have any idea the costs and headaches involved with putting someone en blanco. It can be and for many people is - absolutely cost-prohibitive. So their choices come down to keeping the business open, having a few employees en negro and hoping all goes well or shutting the business down. And yes, that's not hyperbole. It's a fact for several small business owners that I know.

 

[Guillo]

Citigirl, please don't put your emotions into my words. I never talked of pig capitalists. I talked facts, without passion. That offer was made to me in the past ( switch from en blanco to en Negro with those amounts) and the objective of that was to pocket the difference. And I've seen it at least a couple times.
If you cant work in blanco, you might as well close shop. Otherwise you cant complaint about anything about policy or workers, if you don't even want to pay taxes and pay the workers the benefits that are theirs by law.