I agree with Nikad - they are tightening things up: it's getting harder to live in the shadows for those who live, or have lived, fairly carefree here.
Another example is that it is getting more difficult to rent long-term without proof of local income (and that can be money imported, if you can prove how you got it and have paid required taxes - the big thing in that case is showing you can successfully and legally bring money in over a period of time) - for those who want to spend a little more than a few months in the same place, have your own stuff, etc.
I've never, in my 10 years here, been asked to prove income to rent a property with a 2-year contract prior to the last few months. I've had other people I know relate completely different experiences, but the only question I ever got was "do you have a guarantee?" Once I had that, it was only a matter of finding a property that matched my needs at a price I could afford, which was not easy, but much easier than finding the garantia itself.
This time, I have been asked every place I've looked at for my recibo de sueldo.
I'm a monotributista, but even then it's difficult to find owners that will accept the monotributista status itself. Sometimes they don't trust the stability, or rather, believe that being a monotributista is very risky because you have no safety net as far as things like aguinaldo, indemnizacion (getting paid off after you get laid off from a job), you have to find your own clients (you aren't officially allowed to work for just one client as a monotributista, otherwise it's seen as a job under the national employment contract that applies to the work you are doing), you have to be responsible and actually work (which can be difficult to do even in a society with a good work ethic, to set your own hours and stick to it and not goof off), etc.
Aside from the lack of trust in monotributistas, the cap on monotributista is barely enough to rent properties that I need, big enough for us to live comfortably. Mostly I've seen income requirements of 30% of your earnings to approve what you can spend. At 37,500 peso monthly limit, that's about $11,250 pesos a month. That can get a decent 2 bedroom apartment in Recoleta perhaps, but we need more space than that. With what my wife earns (she's also a monotributista) and our oldest earns at her part-time job (she has to be a signer on the contract and officially be a resident in the apartment to count her income as well), we have enough support to do what we need to do - but not in Recoleta.
So in just some 32 months, since the last apartment I moved into, it's gone from me never needing to even prove my income to me being really, really, glad I decided to be at least somewhat in the white. If I hadn't been, I'm sure I could have found something, but I wouldn't be as happy as the place I think I've found on the border between Parque Patricios and Boedo (which is going to be a big, big change for us!)
People who live in pensiones/hoteles, or in places like Nueva Pompeya (past the bridge at least) or Jose C Paz (poorer, outlying parts of town in the prior case, way outside of town in the latter) - they don't have to worry too much about these things. In the pensiones/hoteles you don't have to have a garantia or prove your income. I could see staying in something like that, as a younger person at least, for a short time but not long term. My wife lived in one when I met her and while they're not terrible, well, I don't like sharing bathrooms or kitchens with a whole host of other people. My wife's brothers and their families rent a PH in Nueva Pompeya, past the bridge, broken up into 4 different apartments. They didn't need a garantia nor have to prove their income (although all work in the white). But there is a bad stink nearby from a butcher shop and it's not the safest of places - though it's nothing like the villas (and no, they don't live in the villa out there - they are respectable, hard-working, though economically-challenged, people. They are as affected as everyone else when the protesting rateros from the villa cut off the bridge across the river).
I mention this about living conditions because for many it could be either a matter of your level of lifestyle (if you're here for the long haul because of love or some other pressing matter that may keep you here under less-than-good conditions) or leaving Argentina in a few years if things continue on this track, if you don't start moving into the white.
