During his speech in one of the panels of the National Mining Congress, the president of the economic studies center Anif, Mauricio Santa María, He made a strong call to attention to the Government so that it acts coherently and without improvisations in the tax reform and in the energy transition.
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“I see a bit of improvisation because the transition is not done at the point of killing the energy mining sector. It must be done slowly, well done and with market signals, such as carbon taxes and others that can be set, that market auctions move towards renewable sources and other issues towards the agricultural sector”, assured the economist in his participation in this event.
Santa Maria He said that the mining sector is key to external income, with which a large part of social spending is financed, and added: “The government wants the transition but on the other hand it subsidizes fuel, which is worth 2.5 percent of GDP. In the world today gasoline is worth 20,000 pesos and here 9,500 pesos. I see improvisation and measures are too strong and are not correct.
The president of Anif emphasized that a transformation cannot be made by imposing taxes on the sector that provides fiscal resources.
Surcharge, an alternative
For his part, the director of the economic studies center Fedesarrollo, Luis Fernando Mejía, explained that what is affecting the mining and energy sector in the tax reform is not only the tax on exports, but also the treatment that is being given to dividends and also the non-deductibility of royalties in income tax.
Fedesarrollo calculations indicate that with these three effects the effective tax rate for the sector can increase 24 percentage pointswhich is a problem that needs to be solved.
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In particular, Mejía said that the Government has been proposed not only to eliminate the double taxation of dividends, but also, in accordance with the request of the Minister of Finance, José Antonio Ocampo, to make proposals, it has been proposed to change the tax on exports by an income surtax that taxes the utility and not the production income.
“With an increase of almost 25 percentage points in the effective tax rate, production would fall, employment would fall and it would be even worse from the tax point of view”, the analyst warned.
Bearing in mind that the tax on exports proposed in the tax reform alone would represent new income of 7 billion pesos, Fedesarrollo points out, depending on what the Government is willing to leave aside, an income surcharge of 2 or 3 points for the energy mining sector could be something reasonable.
“If everything is left, the surcharge should be smaller and a good part of the elements is eliminated, it could be between two and three percentage points,” he added.
According to calculation of Colombian Mining Association (ACM), Only because of this year’s activity of high prices of raw materials, the government, without tax reform, will receive almost 9 billion pesos more than what it receives on average, only from the mining sector, due to the high price clauses that they are already incorporated in the contracts.
With information Economy and Business
