Colombian President Gustavo Petro signed his tax reform on Tuesday after Congress and the Senate passed the measure, with which the Colombian government intends to raise an additional 20 billion pesos (about 3.95 billion euros) per year.
The Colombian President, the Vice-President, Francia Márquez; the Minister of Finance, José Ocampo; and the Minister of the Interior, Alfonso Prada, among other high-ranking officials, met at the Casa de Nariño, as reported by ‘El Espectador’.
«Approving a tax reform is not easy, it has never been easy; as a congressman I was in 15 that always revolved around the same axes that consisted in extending the VAT to the basic food basket, originating that tax reforms never improved the circumstances of social inequality in Colombia», said President Petro after signing the law, as reported by ‘El Colombiano’.
For the Minister of Finance, the measure, which will become a reality from January 1, 2023, «is perhaps one of the most consulted reforms of the Government».
Likewise, Ocampo pointed out that «many rules have been incorporated that are quite effective not only for the Ministry of Finance, but for the whole Government».
Among the most important points of the measure are that the State will be able to collect an additional 3,950 million Euros and that the regulation will no longer allow the deductibility of royalties in the income tax for mining and energy companies and the levies on ultra-processed food and beverages, as the Government had hoped to do.
In addition, the tax reform will tax foreign companies with significant economic presence in Colombia such as Netflix, Amazon or Uber, while it will not tax some basic or staple products such as bread.
