The Argentinian Government Unleashes the Tax Agency on Its Critics BUENOS AIRES - If you want to publicly criticize Argentina's government, make sure all your tax filings are in order. That was the thinly veiled message President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner sent Wednesday near the end of a speech broadcast on all national television and radio stations. Reiterating her standard criticism that media "operations" are depressing Argentinians with gloom-and-doom stories, she derided an article published last Sunday. She didn't say this, but the paper that ran it was Clarín, the country's largest-circulation daily. In the story, the owner of a real-estate agency, one of its directors and an employee were quoted complaining that recent government measures essentially blocking the sale of foreign currency to citizens had paralyzed their business. Kirchner then dropped this bit of information: the firm in question hasn't filed taxes since 2007 and neither has the director quoted in the story, whom she named. She had called up the head of the tax agency to ask, and this, too, she openly revealed on Wednesday's broadcast. It's not the first time Kirchner goes after her critics; she regularly portrays herself as a victim of merciless attacks from corporate interests that want her to fail. But her statement on Wednesday stood out for so clearly and so publicly outlining the risks her detractors take by speaking up. It was a not-so indirect threat, and it was a threat perhaps more chilling still for coming at a time when Argentina's economy is slumping. Twitter lit up in response. But the reaction among mainstream media outlets, including usually mordant ones, was surprisingly muted. And maybe that's not so surprising: they know something about the government's use of the tax agency as a political tool. In 2009 tax inspectors descended on the offices of the group that owns Clarín, the country's largest media conglomerate, precisely at the height of the company's battle with the government over a new media law that, among other things, would weaken the group by forcing it to sell some of its assets. The legislation has since been approved. Last year, the journalist Luis Majul accused the tax agency of harassing him as part of an effort to discredit him and prevent the publication of his latest book, a scathing investigation into the inside workings of Kirchner's administration. This month, tax inspectors questioned the owner of a small bakery in the northern province of Tucumán just one day after her interview with the country's most famous opposition journalist was broadcast. In it she described the difficulties of helping run a soup kitchen without government help. Still, Kirchner's statement on Wednesday was different: by saying that she had called the taxman out of supposed concern for the real-estate agency, she unabashedly established cause and effect: you criticize me; I punish you. Was there a better way for her to flex muscle than signal that Argentina's government agencies are at her beck and call and say so with no shame? Just minutes after issuing her warning, Kirchner also said that "there has never been so much freedom of expression" in Argentina. And then, apparently without a hint of irony, she added that she didn't want Argentinians to feel they must keep their "mouths covered." Clearly, they open them at their own peril. Daniel Politi is a freelance writer living in Argentina.