Argentina's Fiscal Lock-in: Tax Reform as Extended Phenotype

WHY ARGENTINA'S TAX SYSTEM CANNOT BE REFORMED Argentina's National Constitution (Art. 75 inc. 2) requires national direct taxes to be established "for determinate time." Yet the income tax created by Law 11,682 (1932) has operated continuously for 93 years without temporal limitation, making Argentina the only federal case globally where national income tax operates without constitutional amendment. COMPARATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS: • USA: Amendment XVI (1913) - constitutional change • Australia: Referendums 1910-1967 - democratic approval• India: Constitution 1950 - formal constitutional provision• Argentina: 1932 law persists unconstitutionally for 93 years EXTENDED PHENOTYPE ANALYSIS: Argentina's tax system is not a rational design but the extended phenotype of a 1932 constitutional mutation that created an Evolutionarily Stable Equilibrium. The system persists not because it works but because it cannot be changed without dismantling interdependent structures.THE FISCAL TRILEMMA: Argentina can simultaneously achieve only two of three objectives: 1. Constitutional compliance (temporal limitation) 2. Fiscal sustainability (adequate revenue) 3. Provincial autonomy (federalism) Any reform satisfying two objectives violates the third, creating political impossibility. EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE: • Historical analysis 1853-2025 • Quantitative fiscal data 2010-2024 • Genealogical analysis of Supreme Court precedents • International comparative analysis (4 countries) THEORETICAL CONTRIBUTION: Demonstrates how constitutional mutations create irreversible fiscal architectures through phenotypic expression. The tax system is self-reproducing machinery, not neutral infrastructure.