The President of Colombia asked Jairo Villabona, head of the National Tax and Customs Directorate, to resign due to low tax collection and for not issuing a resolution on gambling games.
Colombia.- The repercussions continue in Colombia after the failure of the Financing Law which stipulated, among other points, the increase in the VAT levy on gambling and betting.
Now, who came out to speak publicly was Jairo Villabona, head of the National Tax and Customs Directorate (DIAN), who revealed that he will leave his position on January 24 after President Gustavo Petro, through his Minister of Finance, Diego Guevara, asked him to submit his resignation.
Villabona told the local media La República that his departure is due, on one hand, to the low results in tax collection, and on the other, to not having promulgated a resolution to tax online gambling games, as proposed by the tax reform that failed in Congress.
Regarding the Executive's intention to increase the gambling tax, the official told the Colombian newspaper: "The president argued that the DIAN could have issued a resolution to do it directly, and with that, it would not have had to go to discussion with Congress. But, that is not true, that was not possible."
And he explained that "a tax on a good, a service, and that has to go to Congress, since it must be issued by law."
See also: The President of Colombia signs a decree that tightens the rules for raffles and gambling games
Villabona also responded in La República about why he is blamed for the low tax collection and the failure of the tax reform and said: "It must be understood that those collection projections were not even made, and the tax reform no, but that is what they told me: that the DIAN was to blame for not having passed the virtual gambling games, but as the director of the DIAN, I do not have those powers."
For President Gustavo Petro, the health sector could receive extra financing from the gaming industry, but without the need to increase the general tax burden of companies.
The initiative emerged after Guillermo Alfonso Jaramillo, Minister of Health, suggested the possibility of negotiating an increase in the Capitation Payment Unit for 2025. Later, President Petro commented on it on his social networks and insisted that taxing gambling games and the surtax on fossil extractions would be the alternative to finance the Colombian health system.
