Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced upcoming tax reform aimed at creating a fairer and more efficient system, in a presidential press release Saturday.
“What happens is there are a lot of rich people who don’t pay”, said the Colombian leader. “The wealthy who pay their taxes have nothing to worry about — in fact we’re going to lower their taxes. Those who don’t pay, we’ll make them pay. We’ll correct this inequality with tax reform.”
In the Wall Street Journal report, Colombia’s Finance Minister Juan Carlos Echeverry said, “My goal isn’t to increase the amount of tax resources next year, my goal is to produce a more just, efficient, pro-business [system] that gradually increases revenue.”
Echeverry took a different tone than Santos, saying informal business and workers were the cause of much lost tax revenue in Colombia.
According to the presidential release the legislation will soon be presented to Congress, but a date was not specified.
A Wall Street Journal report said the legislation aims at reforming almost 900 articles of tax code.
Colombia’s current tax revenue is 14% of its GDP compared to Brazil’s 34.4% and Argentina’s 37.2%.