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He assures that he has asked not to tax the family basket. The Government will propose to Congress to freeze state spending for the periods 2022, 2023 and 2024.
This Tuesday, during the inauguration of Circuito Colombia, the parallel agenda to the IDB Assembly that starts tomorrow in Barranquilla, President Iván Duque gave more details of the initiatives that the Government will take to the Congress of the Republic and that address issues such as Solidarity Income . He also referred to the “requests” that he has made to the Ministry of Finance, in relation to the tax reform.
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According to the president, the agenda that the Government will take to Congress, which began regular sessions on Tuesday, March 16, is made up of six points. The first one is about Solidarity Income, so that, according to Duque, “it is consolidated as a permanent program”, which manages to cover more households and increase the amounts.
The second point is related to the VAT refund, which currently, according to the Government, two million households benefit. The objective is also to increase this number to “correct inequities in the tax system”.
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Likewise, the Executive will seek to expand the educational solidarity fund, which, according to the president, has made it possible to reach about 70% of the students of the public university in the country with zero enrollment. The goal is for this strategy to “consolidate” and extend to strata 1, 2 and 3. Also for young people, the Government will propose incentives for the hiring of personnel between 18 and 28 years of age, for a period of five years, in the one that the Nation would cover the costs corresponding to social security.
For employment, Duque assures that the extension of the PAEF will be sought during 2021, focusing on the sectors most affected by the pandemic, while for micro and small companies a tax relief will be proposed to stimulate job creation.
Regarding the tax reform, the president clarified that he has “asked the Ministry of Finance team” not to impose any tax on basic goods and services of households. “Let’s look for other tools, creative, progressive, equitable as ordered by the Constitution.” Likewise, he assured that there will be a “savings effort” by the State, which will consist of the freezing of personnel expenses and the acquisition of goods and services for the 2022, 2023 and 2024 terms. All this, to save and help “Stabilize public finances”, on which the covid crisis has exerted pressure.
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Duque called for the discussion of this agenda to be “constructive” in Congress, just the same day that opposition and independent parties announced the filing of a bill for the creation of universal basic income. Read more about this in: Basic income, a project reaches Congress again: What does it consist of?
