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President Iván Duque denied that this will be his third reform to increase collection. Guaranteeing free education for lower strata and youth employment are some of the project’s themes.
Since last year, when the pandemic exacerbated the country’s problems, the Minister of Finance, Alberto Carrasquilla, presaged about the need for a tax reform. And he was not wrong. Public opinion is focused on talking about the issue. Most are speculations, because the project has not been presented to the banks and, much less, there is a draft.
In this confusing environment of what is to come, but under the certainty that there will be tax changes through the legislative process, President Iván Duque came out to say that three reforms of these characteristics have not been processed in his government and that it that will be established in the next few days is not about a tax reform, but about a project of “solidary social transformation”.
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In 2018, recently arrived at the Casa de Nariño, Duque presented a tax reform that he called the Financing Law, with the objective of raising $ 14 billion for the General Budget of the Nation of 2019. A year later, the Constitutional Court overthrew it for errors of procedure in its process in Congress and, therefore and for the second time, it filed another legislative proposal equal to the previous one, but with the name Economic Growth Law. Both were approved at the Capitol.
Although the Government insisted on calling them that, before the Capitol, public opinion and citizenship it was a tax reform. And for this third round, giving the reform a special name seems the norm.
“It is not about a tax reform, but about financing and socially protecting our country in the midst of the pandemic and for the next few years,” the president told Caracol Radio.
The past reforms, for Duque, had the objective of increasing collection, reducing the fiscal deficit and lowering the burden on micro, small and medium-sized companies. This again, according to him, their purpose is to extend the social benefits that have an expiration date this year. Among them were the Solidarity Income, the Formal Employment Support Program (PAEF), student aid, and business loan support.
Too: Tax reform: the sides that favor Congress.
In that sense, he insisted that the nature of the project is not taxable and that it will comply with the three principles of the Constitution: progressivity, in that whoever has more contributes more; equity, as soon as those most affected are prioritized; and effectiveness, “that is easy to collect”.
“I do not want us to look at social solidarity in terms of those who are beaten and not beaten, but rather in terms of solidarity as a principle and that it is received throughout society,” he commented in the same medium.
However, when explaining the third constitutional principle, it speaks, without makeup, of collection. For what criticism has rained, especially from opposition congressmen. “It is very serious that the president tells this type of lies. It is a tax reform and the whole country knows it, ”wrote the MAIS representative, María José Pizarro.
In addition to ensuring the resources for the temporary programs that were born by the crisis caused by the pandemic, the president also shared on Caracol Radio that the proposal includes the promotion of youth employment between 18 and 28 years old, under the commitment that the Government will pay for five years the social security of the newly hired.
“No measure of a tax nature, of a fiscal nature that is adopted in the sustainable social transformation will come into effect in the year 2021. All are planned to be generated in 2022, so that this year we can promote recovery and growth,” said the head of State to the radio medium. Also on the dates, he specified, what is collected from this reform will begin to be reflected in 2023, “when I will no longer be president.”
Tax reforms are not the only ones that the government has replaced the name. The pension reform that was being discussed at a labor agreement table in 2020 was called “reform to the structure of the old-age protection system.” And it is not only with legislative projects, but with terms. For example, instead of massacres, the Executive has implemented collective killings. Stabilization by implementation of the Peace Agreement. Orange economy by creative industries.
Grass: Understand why the UN talks about massacres and not collective killings.
“The purpose of these euphemisms is to give a subtle and decorous touch to unpopular reforms that are clearly harmful to the country’s salaried people,” said the professor of the National University, Andrés Felipe Mora, on the same subject last year.
