The President of the Republic, Gustavo Petro, sanctioned on Tuesday night the tax reform law with which it is expected to collect at least 20 billion pesos, allowing the Executive to implement its social policy.
Senator Clara López and representative Álvaro Monedero, who were speakers for the reform in Congress, celebrated that the work of three months of negotiations and adjustments has finally borne fruit and that the Government can count on that additional money for the four-year term. so that it can comply with the National Development Plan that will be finalized at the beginning of 2023.
The Minister of Finance, José Antonio Ocampo, pointed out that this was the most concerted project in history and reiterated that it was not approved on a ‘pupitrazo’, “as some parliamentarian said”. Here he was referring, without naming him, to Miguel Uribe Turbay, from the Democratic Center, who opposed not only the text but also the way in which it was approved in the Legislature.
“Approving a tax reform is not easy, it never has been; As a congressman I was in regarding 15 that always revolved around the same axes that consisted of extending VAT to the basic basket, causing the tax reforms to never improve the circumstances of social inequality in Colombia”, said President Gustavo Petro following sanctioning the law .
Petro insisted that the reform did not bring down the peso, which is close to $4,800.
The Head of State celebrated that “this tax reform allows for increased social spending” and gave details on how the new resources will be spent, something that will be formalized next February with the budget addition. It is then regarding agrarian reform, access to education, environmental justice, energy transition and with a greater adequacy of the State to improve public finances with mechanisms such as the multipurpose cadastre.
In addition, the president regretted not having achieved the approval of the tax on high pensions. “It is something that we will not know if we had achieved, that is a debt,” he said.
