This week is decisive in tax matters, since it will be the socialization stage of the tax reform project of the Petro government presented last August 8 before the Congress of the Republic.
(Read: Tax reform: pros and cons that Anif sees in the project).
This implies the search for agreements on some points that have been widely debated from other sectors.
The Minister of Finance, José Antonio Ocampo, will not have it easy, especially when the Radical Change bench He anticipated that he will not vote for this initiative because he considers that “it is neither social nor much less equitable,” as David Luna, senator of said party, pointed out this week.
Entrepreneurs, production associations and some think tanks, among other market players, have also made their own objections about the effects and scope that the project would have in question if the Legislature approves it.
That is why the government has insisted that the doors of dialogue are open and that they are willing to discuss certain points. They have also been clear that there are some immovable in the project.
The first of the changes that the Government will make to the proposal is the elimination of the article with which they sought to tax extraordinary gold exports with a tariff of 10 percentsince they consider that it is a complicated task because “much of the gold that Colombia exports is smuggled”, while many large gold companies work with small producers, a segment that the Executive is interested in supporting and promoting.
(Also: They launch a campaign for churches to pay taxes in the tax).
The second setting has to do with the fuel price subsidies in border areaswhich in principle would be eliminated, but which, according to what Ocampo expressed at the end of the forum organized by the economic studies center Anif on Friday, will remain.
With free zones there have also been rapprochements and advances. The government’s idea was to impose export requirements on these zones, since 85 percent of their sales go to the local market, generating unfair competition with the businessman who is outside these areas and pays 35 percent income tax.
The government’s message was that did not increase their exports, they would have to pay the normal income tax.
But the businessmen of the free zones committed themselves to that during the meetings they held with Ministers Ocampo, of Finance, and Germán Umaña, of Foreign Trade, during the Andi Congress that took place in Cartagena in mid-August.
There are certain pillars that the Government has emphasized that unless there are proposals to improve them without affecting the essence of the projectthey will have no changes.
This is the case of the amount of the collection, about which businessmen have said that it is very high and would hit the production sector very hard, which would have to put up to 17 billion pesos, according to preliminary calculations by Andi.
(Read: ‘Another reform may be needed in about two years’: Santamaría).
Bruce Mac Master, the highest spokesman for the country’s businessmen, has been reiterative in this regard and has asked the Government to reduce that goal.
The government intends bring the poverty index (Gini) from 0.543 to 0.491, a reduction of 0.053, almost double what is achieved with the current tax system 0.029. Therefore, the issue of collection is one of the immovable.
Nor will the 4 × 1,000 goperhaps it will undergo some adjustments taking into account some suggestions from the bankers who want it to be eliminated for the Simple Tax Regime, as a way to encourage the formalization of thousands of MSMEs.
As for the proposal to raise the tax on occasional earnings from 10 to 20 percent, the option to moderate its impact may be to further combat evasion.
BRIEFCASE
With information from EL TIEMPO*
