The Colombian President Gustavo Petro confirmed this Sunday that his administration will present to Congress a tax reform focused on social issues to obtain resources to help the most vulnerable population.
(Read: ‘I will develop the popular economy, industry and the countryside’: Petro).
“Equality is possible if we are capable of creating wealth for all, and if we are capable of distributing it more fairly. That is why we propose an economy based on production, work and knowledge. And that is why we propose a tax reform that generates justice“said the head of state in his inaugural speech.
Petro explained that taking a part of the wealth of the people who have the most and earn the most, to open the doors of education to all children and youth “It should not be seen as a punishment or a sacrifice. It is simply the solidarity payment that someone lucky makes to a society that allows and guarantees their fortune.”
For the president, solidarity is the tax paid by those who can andl state spending on those who need it. “State spending is not for the political mafias, it is for the people of the town,” he said.
The Minister of Finance of Petro, José Antonio Ocampo, is expected to present to Congress on Monday the tax reform that seeks to raise 50 billion pesos (about 11,543 million dollars today) according to the estimates of the technical team of the new Government.
Ocampo has already announced that said reform will have as axes the increase in the income tax of those who earn the most and the fight against tax evasion. In his speech, the president recalled that “10% of the Colombian population has 70% of the wealth”, which he considered “nonsense and amorality”.
(Also: The 10 mandates with which Petro committed himself to his government).
“Let’s not naturalize inequality and poverty. Let’s not look the other way, let’s not be accomplices. With will, redistribution policies and a justice program we are going to make Colombia more equal and with more opportunities for everyone,” he added. According to the new president of Colombia, humanity has not advanced by competing but has achieved it “by helping us.”
“We will be equal when the one who has the most when paying his taxes does so with pleasure, with pride, knowing that he will help his neighbor, boy, girl, baby, young person, woman, to grow up healthy, to think, to live with the fullness that gives nutrition and education of the brain and of the soul,” he assured. Likewise, he stressed that “solidarity is in the tax paid by those who can pay it and in the state’s spending that goes to those who need it for their childhood, for their youth, for their old age.”
Petro concluded that the taxes “will not be confiscatory, they will simply be fair, in a country that must recognize the enormous social inequality in which we live as an aberration, in a State that must protect the transparency of spending, and in a society that deserves to live in peace”.
EFE
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