Once the tax reform has been approved, after conciliation, it now passes to presidential sanction

The Congress of the Republic approved on the morning of this Thursday, September 9, conciliation of the new tax reform project, also called Social investment law. The plenary of the Senate approved the articles by 70 votes for and 8 against; while in the House of Representatives, he had 132 affirmative and 22 negative votes.

Now the project will move to President Ivan Duque, which must execute the respective sanction for it to become law. With the four articles that were added, tax 2.0 was made up of 64 sections and will search raise close 15.2 billion pesos.

The 61 articles initially presented by the national government they passed each of the debates. In the case of the Senate, the whole reform was approved during the second debate: 76 positive votes and one negative; even if, it should be remembered, without the presence of the opposition. For its part, after nine hours of discussion, the Chamber also endorsed the project with 124 votes for and eight against.

Despite the fact that the focus groups were conducted in an agile manner and most of the reform was approved as presented by the government, they did come about 12 modifications in the middle of the debates and even four novelties, which had to be submitted to a vote in conciliation.

Some of these novelties are, for example, that motorcycle fines debtors have special payment terms. Another aspect was related to conditions for the marketing of goods seized from the Mafia in the country. On the Senate side, an article was entered at the last minute for use 100% carbon tax the protection, preservation and restoration of strategic areas and ecosystems.

However, one of the points on which controversy has arisen has been the little time and the lack of discussion that for some members of Congress there was a document approval process. Precisely, This is the reason why several members of the opposition withdrew from the enclosure.. “We are withdrawing from the debate. It is absurd that we are discussing a project of this importance with a proposal that they only sent until last night. It must be taken seriously! “, were the words of Representative Catalina Ortiz.

The Minister of Finance, José Manuel Restrepo, who had the challenge of bringing the project to fruition, assured that there had been discussion. In dialogue with the station On the radio, the head of the economic portfolio stressed that nearly 300 proposals were debated in congressional committees in the preceding weeks and which were refused for not having the approval of the government. In addition, during the last session, more than 13 hours and only 16 articles had proposals.

Among some of the points that have received the “green light” were the expansion of PAEF (Support program for formal employment). They have also been approved Articles 3, 5 and 6, which have to do with the tax standardization tax measures; as well as the articles 8, 9, 10 and 11 of Chapter Three, which include measures to facilitate the administration and mobilization of the assets of the Special Assets Company (SAE).

It was approved on article 22, which includes the incentive to create jobs; as well as 49, for example, which implies an incentive to orange economy companies for five years, and art. 45 and 46, referring to OTC termination agreements administrative, customs and foreign exchange procedures in front of the Dian.

One of the issues that was not approved and which also generated repercussions was that of implement a tax on sugary drinks. As is article 51, which includes Payment of VAT on postal code shipments under $ 200, that is, purchases through platforms like Amazon, only when there is no signed free trade agreement that excludes them, as in the case of the United States, but not in China .

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