Colombia: Petro pushes forward the tax reform

The leftist president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, signed his tax reform on Tuesday after Congress and the Senate carried out the measure, with which the Colombian government intends to collect an additional COL$20 billion (about €3.95 billion) 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 senior officials, as reported by ‘El Espectador’.

“Approving a tax reform is not easy, it never has been; as a congressman, I was in about 15 that always revolved around the same axes that consisted of extending VAT to the basic basket, causing the tax reforms to never improve the circumstances of social inequality in Colombia”, President Petro stated after sanctioning the law, according to ‘El Colombiano’.

Among the most important points of the measure are that the State will be able to collect an additional €3.95 billion and that the norm will no longer allow the deductibility of royalties in income tax for mining-energy companies and taxes on ultra-processed food and beverages, as the government hoped to do.

In addition, the tax reform will tax foreign companies with a significant economic presence in Colombia such as Netflix, Amazon or Uber, while it will not tax some basic or essential products such as bread.

With information from La Gaceta

For the full picture, see our Brazil Tax Reform: Complete Guide.

More: Brazil news in English, every day from The Rio Times.