Colombia: after police repression, Iván Duque an …

“I ask the Congress of the Republic to withdraw the project submitted by the Ministry of Finance and to urgently deal with a new project following a consensus and thus avoid financial uncertainty, ”the president expressed at a press conference from the Casa de Nariño, seat of government.

According to Duque, the withdrawal of the project is based on the search for a consensus with the different political, social and commercial sectors, in order to build a new tax reform text that will resolve the nation’s public finances.

In this sense, he argued that the new proposition exclude the increase in VAT on goods and services and the broadening of the income tax base, two of the most controversial points of the “law of sustainable solidarity”.

And he said that the new law, agreed with political parties, the private sector and civil society, will focus on the temporary taxation of the wealthiest companies and social classes: will contain a temporary income tax for companies, a wealth tax, dividends and high income people as well as the commitment to deepen state austerity programs.

The head of state’s decision comes after four days of massive protests, which included strikes and mobilisations in different regions of Colombia, and left as a balance hundreds of arrests and wounded and at least five dead, because of police repression.

The reform is necessary to “give fiscal stability to the country, protect the social programs of the most vulnerable and generate conditions for growth after the effects of the covid-19 pandemic.”», Affirmed the Colombian president.

In 2020, Colombia’s GDP fell 6.8% – its worst performance in half a century. Unemployment soared to 16.8% in March and 3.5 million people fell into poverty amid the economic crisis triggered by the pandemic.