New chips are beginning to be known on the board for the management of the economy during the government of Gustavo Petro. This time, it was announced to Luis Carlos Reyes as director of the Dianreplacing Lisandro Junco, who has so far accompanied President Iván Duque, in leading the the entity on which most of the income with which the Colombian State depends.
In the hands of Reyes will be the task of continuing to increase tax collection through the fight once morest evasion and the modernization of the Dian, but perhaps the toughest mission will be to help build tax reform.
Reyes, on his resume, has a Ph.D. in Economics from Michigan State University. His titles also include Economist and Historian, trained at Florida International University.
He is an expert in public economics, development economics and impact assessment. He has been director and co-founder of the Fiscal Observatory, which has carried out two analyzes on Colombia’s tax policy in recent years.
In academia, he has served as an associate professor of economics and as an assistant professor in areas of advanced macroeconomics. He has been critical of tax issues
It should be noted that during the campaign, the Observatory led by Reyes carried out an analysis package on the tax issue proposed by the presidential candidates. Many of the ideas of the Historical Pact qualified them as viable.
Among the main challenges that Reyes will have, it is highlighted that this entity, hand in hand with the Ministry of Finance, will be the one that will have an active participation in the construction and defense in the Congress of the Republic, of the tax reform that the government will carry out. elect of Gustavo Petrowhich, according to what is known so far, would go for regarding 50 billion pesos and will have to deal with many unpopular issues, taking into account that the measures that it will include will have to generate progressiveness in the payment of taxes, dismantle of tax benefits and application of taxes to pensioners.
What awaits you?
Member of the junction team of the incoming government with the outgoing one, Reyes he had been standing out for his knowledge of tax matters. However, it will not be so easy, because if the collection goal for this 2022 is close to 200 billion pesos, by 2023, when the results of the tax reform that the elected government should begin to enter the public coffers has promised to process this year, they will have to be much larger, taking into account the high need to increase public resources to honor Petro’s campaign promises.
But Reyes might enter with proposals related to the path that Petro seeks to follow in tax matters. It is noteworthy that, in his analysis of Petro’s tax proposals, long before his name was announced as the new director of Dian, he had talked regarding the feasibility of an additional collection such as the one mentioned in the campaign for the presidency. (of 50 billion pesos). This, taking into account that in our country, “the level of taxation is low if we compare it with the average of Latin America and the OECD. To bring our level to a level comparable to that of Latin America, we would have to add 30 billion pesos to the collection and for the OECD it would be almost an additional 20 billion”, he said at the time.
first reactions
Unlike other charges, that of Reyes was not launched through social networks but at the summit of the Historical Pact, in Medellín, where Ricardo Bonilla himself made the confirmation.
One of the first reactions to the appointment of the new director of the Dian is that of congressman Cesar Lorduy, who asks to know the position of the new member of the team with which Petro will work, on the issue of basic income.
