Petro’s 2022 tax reform
The first legislative priority of Gustavo Petro’s new administration is a major tax reform. The new government’s tax reform wants to raise 25 trillion pesos (US$ 5.69 billion), or 1.72% of GDP, in new revenues in 2023. This makes it one of the biggest, most ambitious tax reforms in the past decade in Colombia.
The government’s main selling point for the tax reform is that it will reduce wealth inequality and support increased spending on social programs. Indeed, the tax reform has become the cornerstone of Petro’s campaign promise to reduce social inequalities. In his inaugural address, Petro explicitly linked the promises of equality and wealth redistribution to the tax reform. He said that the tax reform was about “taking part of the wealth of those who have the most and earn the most to open the doors of education to all children and youth” and that the idea that rich people should pay more taxes “should not be seen as a punishment or a sacrifice” but rather as a “solidary payment” that someone more fortunate makes to the society.
The pandemic wiped out a decade’s worth of progress in reducing poverty. According to the DANE, monetary poverty was 39.3% in 2021 and extreme poverty was 12.2%, lower than in 2020 but higher than in 2019. Colombia is also one of the most unequal countries in Latin America, with a persistently high Gini coefficient (0.52 in 2021).
The tax reform is necessary because of the economic situation of the country. Like in many other countries, the pandemic blew a big hole in Colombia’s public finances. The central government’s net debt increased to 60.8% of GDP and the budget deficit increased to over 7% of GDP in 2020 and 2021(it is projected to be 5.6% of GDP in 2022), significantly higher than in the previous decade. Iván Duque’s administration was unable to pass its big but very poorly-timed tax reform in 2021 because of the huge protests, and needed to settle on a smaller, stopgap reform. The government says that the tax reform will contribute to a structural fiscal adjustment and create new permanent sources of revenues. In addition, the government urgently needs a lot more revenues to pay for some of Petro’s ambitious but costly campaign promises.
A broken tax system
Everyone can agree that Colombia’s tax system is inefficient, dysfunctional and unfair. The state doesn’t raise enough money through taxation: it only collects 19.7% of its GDP in tax revenues (2019), compared to 27.3% for Latin America and 33.8% for the OECD.
Unlike much of the OECD, most of the government’s tax revenues come from VAT (29% of tax revenues) and corporate taxation (24.5%) rather than personal income tax (7%).
In addition, the Colombian tax system does an exceptionally poor job at redistributing income. There is practically no difference in the Gini coefficient before and after taxes.
Colombia’s tax system is plagued by an excessive, confusing, inefficient and unfair array of tax expenditures which skew the system, usually in favour of the rich. Colombia foregoes approximately 6.5% of its GDP in tax expenditures, the highest in Latin America.
Note: Colombian tax regulations use a ‘tax value unit’ (UVT), which is adjusted annually. The value of the UVT for 2022 is set at 38,004 pesos.
The 2022 tax reform
The tax reform wants to raise 25 trillion pesos in 2023. This is about half of the 50–55 trillion pesos figure the campaign threw around during the election, but such a reform would have been politically impossible. Instead, the goal is to gradually raise up to 50 trillion pesos (US$ 11.37 billion) by 2026 by reducing tax evasion.
The main points of the reform are: (1) reducing income tax benefits which favour the wealthy and modifying the personal income tax system, (2) reducing and limiting asymmetrical benefits for corporations, (3) new sources of revenue through taxes on mineral resources and other environmental and health taxes.
The official name of the reform is “tax reform for equality and social justice”. The government argues that it is built on the constitutional principles of progressivity, equity and efficiency and seeks to reduce the Colombian state’s “historical social debt” with the people. The reform does not clearly spell out how the new revenues will be used, but the government says that increased revenues will go towards eradicating hunger and reducing poverty.
Of the 25 trillion pesos to be raised, 8.1 trillion would come from changes to personal income taxes, 7 trillion would come from new taxes on the use of mineral subsoil resources, 5.1 trillion would come from changes to corporate taxation, 2.5 trillion would come from new environmental and health taxes and the remaining 2.2 trillion would come through various other measures. This article will go through these in greater detail.
The government’s projections claim that the tax reform will reduce extreme poverty by 4% and monetary poverty by 3.9%, reduce the after-tax Gini coefficient to 0.491 (currently 0.514) and reduce the income gap between the wealthiest and poorest 10%.
The tax reform does not touch the VAT (with one minor exception), foregoing the opportunity to make the VAT system more efficient in order to make the reform more politically viable. As everyone pays VAT, and it is the main source of government revenue, it is the most politically sensitive tax. Any modifications to the VAT would risk making the reform politically difficult.
In addition, the bill does not propose to reduce the high corporate tax rate (35%), as Petro had proposed in his platform, because a corporate tax cut would have made it more difficult to raise 25 trillion pesos.
Personal income tax
As noted, Colombia collects very little of its total tax revenue from personal income tax (IRPN): only 9.3% of central government tax revenue, or 1.3% of GDP, the lowest in the OECD.
Very few people pay income tax (1.6 million, or 5% of income earners), because of a very high basic exemption (around 3 times the average wage) which leaves most of the middle-class out of income taxation. In addition, excessive (and regressive) tax deductions and exemptions and other tax benefits favour the rich and mean that the effective tax rates paid by individuals are very low. Finance minister José Antonio Ocampo, to illustrate the point that individuals pay very little in taxes in Colombia, said that he pays more in taxes in the United States than in Colombia.
Moreover, the tax code differentiates between different types of income (labour, capital income, dividends, occasional income including capital gains, pensions, non-labour income) and taxes them at different rates on separate tax schedules. Dividends and occasional capital gains are taxed at a marginal rate of 10%, whereas the general schedule has 6 tax brackets from 19% to 39%).
The nature of non-taxable income, exempt income and tax deductions also favour the wealthy and erode the tax base. For example, mortgage interest payments, voluntary contributions to private health insurance and additional private pension funds, housing savings contributions, some capital gains and capital income costs can all be deducted. In addition, pensions below 38 million pesos monthly (~US$ 8,600) are tax exempt, meaning that almost no pensioners pay income tax (and workers can deduct pension contributions from their taxes). There is a 40% (of general net income) ceiling on exempt income and tax deductions (with some exceptions, up to a maximum value of 5,040 UVT), but this ceiling increases with income, making it regressive. As a result, the effective tax rates paid by in the top decile are significantly below the top statutory marginal tax rates.
The reform essentially raises taxes on those earning (gross) more than 10 million pesos monthly (~US$ 2,270), or about 2.4% of income-earners (about 520,000 taxpayers). Quite a bit more than the “4,000 wealthiest people” that Petro had said would be the only ones who’d pay more taxes, but still targeting only a privileged, wealthy minority (despite a ridiculous elite bubble idea that this 2% is the ‘middle class’).
With the reform, all separate sources of taxable income will be added up and taxed at the general schedule. The marginal rates of the general schedule will not change, but this means that those individuals who get a lot of their income from dividends or capital gains will start paying a lot more in taxes.
The ceilings on on exempt income and tax deductions will be substantially lowered. The 40% ceiling is retained, but the nominal limit is lowered significantly from 5,040 UVT to 1,210 UVT (from 191.5 million pesos to 45.9 million pesos in 2022). A 25% labour income deduction is kept, but the nominal ceiling is also lowered (from 2,880 UVT to 790 UVT). The reform also eliminates and reduces some tax benefits for occasional income
In addition, pensioners who receive more than 10 million pesos monthly will also start paying tax. However, only about 16,700 pensioners earn this much with their pension.
The tax reform recreates, permanently, a wealth tax (impuesto al patrimonio). A wealth tax existed in some form or another from 2002 to 2022, although it was always said to be a ‘temporary’ tax (but there is nothing more permanent than a temporary tax in Colombia…). From 2023, the new wealth tax will charge marginal rates of 0.5% and 1% on liquid assets over 3 billion pesos (US$ 681,000), with an exemption of 12,000 UVT for the value of a residence.
According to the government’s calculations, the reform will increase the effective tax rates on gross monthly incomes over 10 million pesos, in particular the extremely wealthy. For example, the effective tax rate on those with gross monthly incomes over 140 million pesos will increase from 16.4% to 25.7% (or 12.8 million pesos more in taxes).
A lot of these changes — reducing the unfair and regressive tax benefits and taxing pensions — respond to the recommendations of experts, like the 2021 tax experts’ commission on tax expenditures and the think-tank Fedesarollo. However, the reform doesn’t broaden the tax base (having more pay file and pay taxes), something which a lot of experts have proposed but which is very difficult politically, especially after Carrasquilla’s failed 2021 reform.
Corporate taxation
Colombia collects a lot of its tax revenue from corporate taxes (IRPJ) — 24.5% of total government revenues (4.7% of GDP), the highest in the OECD — and has a very high corporate tax rate (a flat rate of 35%), one of the highest in the OECD. Duque’s first tax reform in 2018–19 set out to reduce the corporate tax rate to 30% by 2022, but the 2021 reform in the aftermath of the pandemic instead raised it to 35%. In addition to corporate income tax, the system is made more complex by a number of smaller taxes that businesses need to pay: VAT on fixed assets, a municipal business turnover tax (ICA) and a financial transaction tax (informally known as 4x1000)
This is, however, in good part offset by a plethora of tax expenditures (non-taxable income, exempt income, preferential tax rates, deductions, tax credits, special regimes…) built in through the years for various lobbies and economic sectors. These include tax benefits for sectors like hotels, agroindustry, tourism, construction, real estate, Duque’s cherished ‘orange economy’, mega-investments, mining, renewable energy and others. There are also over 100 free trade zones (FTZ) with tax incentives (including a 20% corporate tax rate) and special economic zones (ZOMAC and tax-free ZESE).
These sectoral tax benefits are unfair, giving preferential treatment (a lower tax burden) to certain sectors over others. In 2022, effective tax rates varied between 27% and 15% across different sectors. Tax avoidance and tax evasion is widespread.
The tax reform keeps the corporate tax rate at 35%. It also makes permanent the 3% surtax on financial institutions (with taxable incomes over 120,000 UVT — about US$ 1 million). Petro’s electoral platform had proposed to lower the corporate tax rate to 30% and set a reduced rate for SMEs, but finance minister Ocampo said that he didn’t have the fiscal leeway to do that.
The reform’s main thrust here is to eliminate several ‘asymmetrical’ tax benefits which favour certain economic sectors or regions. Among others, the reform scraps the preferential tax benefits for mega-investments, agroindustry, hotels, mining, tourism, the orange economy and cinema. Mining and oil royalties will no longer be tax-deductible. The only tax benefits that will be retained are those for state-owned commercial and industrial companies. In addition, the reform creates an annual limit of 3% (of net income) for non-taxable income, exempt income and tax credits. The 50% tax deduction for the ICA, created in 2019, will instead become a deduction, as the government argues that the current set-up created a perverse incentive for municipalities to raise their rates.
The tax rate on corporations’ occasional earnings (e.g. capital gains) will increase from 10% to 30%.
The tax-free ZESE, created by Duque, will be abolished. Companies in FTZs will be required to have an approved internationalization plan in order to take advantage of the 20% tax rate. The majority of companies in Colombian FTZs are domestic firms and not export-oriented.
While experts have recommended eliminating most of the asymmetrical tax benefits, as the reform does, but said this should go in tandem with lowering the very high corporate tax rate — which the reform doesn’t do. Experts also dislike the myriad of other taxes that businesses need to pay, like the ICA and the 4x1000 and have recommended abolishing them. Therefore, corporations will be paying a higher effective tax rate. That’s why many argue that the tax reform will hurt businesses and discourage domestic and foreign investment.
New sources of revenue
The tax reform proposes two major new sources of revenue: export taxes on mineral resources and other environmental and health taxes.
The government wants to create a new tax on the export of crude oil, coal and gold (Colombia’s main subsoil mineral resources) that would be levied during commodity booms, when ‘observed prices’ are above a ‘threshold price’ (for example, US$ 48 a barrel for oil). The government argues that this new tax would help speed up the energy transition, promote higher added value exports and could have helped reduce CO2 emissions, citing evidence from China’s coal exports tax. While this idea was in line with the new government’s anti-extractivist energy policy, this tax has not been recommended by any group of experts and was criticized as being poorly thought-out. On August 26, Ocampo backtracked, and announced that there would be no export tax on gold, explaining that widespread illegal gold mining and small-scale artisanal mining would have made it difficult.
Colombia created a carbon tax in 2016. The reform proposes to gradually tax the sale, import and use of thermal coal (for domestic consumption), beginning in 2025 and reaching the full tax rate in 2028 (to allow time for transition in electricity generation). Coal used in coking plants will remain excluded.
The tax reform creates a tax on single-use plastics (at a rate of 0.00005 UVT per gram). A recent law adopted in 2022 will ban single-use plastics by 2030.
The new battle for health taxes
The Colombian left and ‘alternative’ parties, while in opposition, have long demanded a fat tax and sugary drinks tax, as have many civil society groups. The reform would create a fat tax (on consumption of ultra-processed foods and food with high added sugar contents) and a sugary drinks tax. The fat tax would be charged at a flat rate of 10% on the sale price. The sugary drinks tax would be charged base on the sugar content in grams per 100 milliliters, at a rate of 18 pesos (sugar content from 4 g to 8 g) and 35 pesos (sugar content over 8 g).
Colombia is one of the few countries in Latin America without a tax on sugary drinks. Each time the issue has been raised, the powerful sugarcane industry and food/drinks industry have aggressively lobbied against it, moving their economic muscle, their direct ties to the media and their connections with politicians. The Colombian soft drinks giant Postobón is part of the Ardila Lülle organization, which also owns two big sugar mills (ingenios) and RCN, one of the two major private TV networks in Colombia. For years, the Ardila Lülle group (and other big business interests) have fought against all attempts to impose taxes on soft drinks or to impose food labelling (a food labelling law or ‘junk food law’, modeled on the 2012 Chilean law, was finally adopted in 2021). In the past, they’ve been accused of censoring TV ads against junk food and using their own media outlets (like RCN) to lobby against sugary drinks taxes.
The fat tax would be charged on food like potato chips, some meats, patacones, packed chicharrones, packaged snacks, sweet cookies, waffles and obleas, cupcakes, pies, candies and arequipe. On social media, there’s been a lot of discussion about the tax hitting Chocoramo, a popular Colombian snack (chocolate covered cake).
These new Pigovian taxes would not generate a whole lot of new revenues compared to the changes to personal and corporate taxation, and the government’s argument in their favour is essentially that they raise revenue while mitigating negative externalities — i.e. for their public health and environmental value. Yet, the proposed fat tax and sugary drinks tax has become one of the main rallying points for opposition to this reform. Some arguments have been silly, playing on the fact that people enjoy eating some junk food. Far-right presidential candidate Enrique Gómez was outraged that the tax reform is ‘messing with’ a ‘national symbol’ like Chocoramo. The uribista Centro Democrático (CD) opposition posted a bunch of memes on Twitter about the new taxes on junk food.
Other arguments have been more convincing. The government insists that the poor and middle-class wouldn’t pay more taxes after the tax reform. However, because the poor and vulnerable consume more sugary drinks and ultra-processed foods as part of their basic diet, the impact of the new taxes would be regressive and hit the poor and vulnerable hardest.
Finance minister Ocampo has already indicated that he is open to ‘reconsidering’ the proposed taxes on soft drinks and junk food. Will the lobbyists win yet again?
VAT
Value-added tax (VAT, IVA in Spanish) is the biggest source of revenue for the Colombian government — generating over 40% of central government tax revenue. It is currently levied at a standard rate of 19%, at a reduced rate of 5% or at a 0% rate. Some items, like the canasta familiar (primary consumer goods including most basic foods), are excluded, exempt or taxed at the reduced rate. A VAT compensation mechanism for the poor was introduced in 2020. Because of VAT exemptions, exclusions and reduced rates, Colombia collects only 39% of possible VAT revenues, the lowest in the OECD after Mexico.
Experts like the 2021 tax commission, the OECD and Fedesarrollo have recommended gradually eliminating VAT exemptions and exclusions, raising the 5% reduced rate and taxing more items at the standard rate — all while reducing the impact on low-income households by expanding use of the compensation mechanism.
However, because everyone pays VAT, it is the most politically sensitive tax. Politicians love to make unrealistic promises about VAT during campaign season: this year, Liberal senator Alejandro Carlos Chacón campaigned on eliminating the VAT, while presidential candidate Rodolfo Hernández promised to turn the VAT into a consumption tax at 10%.
For successive governments, trying to expand the VAT base (by taxing more goods) has become political kryptonite. Doubly so after Carrasquilla’s failed 2021 reform proposed to eliminate nearly all exemptions and tax more goods. With that nightmarish fiasco in recent memory, it will take a long time for any government to have both the political courage/will and political capital to significantly reform the VAT system.
This reform barely touches VAT at all. Ocampo preferred to temper his revenue intake ambitions in order to make his reform more politically viable. Experts will grumble that he missed a great opportunity to make the VAT system more efficient, but they don’t need to worry about political consequences…
The only change to VAT in this reform is the abolition of VAT-free days. The gimmicky ‘Black Friday’-like VAT-free days (three per year) were created by Duque in 2019 (acting on a campaign promise), first organized in the summer of 2020, to stimulate consumer spending during the lockdown) and became permanent in 2021. Businesses, especially big box stores, liked the VAT-free days but experts have criticized VAT holidays as they fail to promote any legitimate policy objective. Moreover, as the VAT-free days only covered certain products (like clothing, sporting goods and home appliances), they mostly benefited the middle-class and the rich, not the poor.
Other measures
The tax reform makes some changes to the SIMPLE regime, a presumptive business tax system for microenterprises and small businesses that seeks to incentivize formalization by simplifying the compliance burden for small businesses. It was created in 2018 and it has been praised by experts, including the 2021 tax commission, although they’ve said that it could be furthered simplified. The tax reform lowers the marginal tax rates in the SIMPLE regime and adds a fifth category (education, healthcare and social assistance). The goal of these changes is to encourage more small businesses to enroll in the system and lower their effective tax rates.
Initially, the tax reform wanted to remove the tax benefits for gasoline and diesel fuel in border regions, but Ocampo withdrew that proposal in late August. Since 1995, gasoline and diesel fuel in border regions have been excluded from VAT, exempted from tariffs and the national gas tax. As a result, gas prices are much lower (by about 2,000 pesos) in border cities like Cúcuta. These tax benefits were meant to allow competitive prices in comparison with neighbouring countries, like oil giant Venezuela which long kept oil prices extremely low. Recently, however, with the Venezuelan crisis, the usual fuel smuggling on the Venezuelan border has been upended — with contraband fuel flowing from Colombia into Venezuela (recently, as the Venezuelan oil industry has started to recover, the Colombian fuel smuggling has slowed). Furthermore, since 2007, Colombia has subsidized fuel prices through a stabilization fund. Lawmakers, including some from the Pacto, had been insisting that the government not withdraw fuel subsidies for border regions.
The tax reform aims to gradually raise 50 trillion pesos annually by 2026 by reducing tax evasion. The reform includes various new measures that would help the revenue agency, DIAN, fight tax evasion and tax fraud. These measures include establishing the legal concept of “significant economic presence”, taxing non-resident foreign businesses with a significant economic presence in Colombia, clarifying rules to ensure reporting (and non-deduction) of income in kind and setting indicative ceilings for business expenses (for self-employed individuals paying income tax).
The way forward
The government wants the tax reform to be passed quickly — at the latest by December (to be applied from 2023), ideally in a month and half (from late August). To speed up the legislative process, the government is using the urgent consideration procedure (mensaje de urgencia), which gives the house 30 days to decide on the text and allows the permanent commissions in both houses to sit together.
The tax reform has been sent only to the third commission (in charge of finance and taxation issues), rather than both the third and fourth commissions (the fourth commission is in charge of budgetary issues). Unlike Duque’s tax reforms, this tax reform does not clearly say how and where the new revenues will be spent. How much of the 25 trillion will be used to pay for the new and expanded social programs that Petro has promised? How much will go to reducing the deficit and paying off the debt? Of course, it isn’t necessarily the job of the tax reform to answer those questions — they’ll be answered in the 2023 budget, the companion to this tax reform. In any case, because the tax reform doesn’t say how the new money will be spent, this allows it to go through only the third commission. Not everyone agrees: the congressmen in the fourth commission are complaining and some are already claiming procedural irregularities. It is unclear who took the decision to send the reform to only one commission — whether it was the government or if it was the petrista presidents of the two houses.
In any case, it was a political decision: the third commissions in both houses are more favourable to the government. Both are presided by petristas: Gustavo Bolívar (Pacto) in the Senate, Katherine Miranda (Green) in the House. The government and its allies have a comfortable majority in the third commissions. On the other hand, the government doesn’t have total control over the fourth commissions.
Reactions to the tax reform have been mixed. Some experts and analysts have welcomed some of the measures, particularly those which respond to the recommendations that they’ve made in the past (like cutting the costly and unfair tax benefits for individuals and corporations). Fedesarrollo said that there were positive elements, all while raising concerns about things that could hurt investment. The left is glad that the reform seeks to improve the progressivity of the tax system by making the rich pay a bit more.
The big business groups and lobbies have been giving Petro the benefit of the doubt since his election and all have generally shown themselves to be cautiously optimistic. Petro’s speech at the annual congress of the ANDI (the national employers’ association) was well received. However, the ANDI and other business groups have been critical of the tax reform, particularly the measures on corporate taxation. Bruce Mac Master, the president of the ANDI, says that with the tax reform Colombia will become one of the least competitive countries for business. He says that the total corporate tax rate (including taxes on dividends) will increase from 42% to over 60%, one of the highest in the entire world. Acopi, the small businesses association, is disappointed that there is no lower corporate tax rate for SMEs (they are not alone: some on the left are also raising this point).
Unsurprisingly, the economic sectors who would be most impacted by the reform are opposed. The mining association says that with the reform Colombia will be the only OECD country where royalties are non-deductible and says the export tax on subsoil mineral resources is unprecedented. The oil and gas association (ACP) says that the reform will increase their tax burden to 80% and threatens the viability of oil exploration and production. The ACP also claims that about a quarter of the cost of the tax reform will fall on the oil and gas industry. The gastronomic industry dislikes the new fat taxes. The plastics associations dislikes the new tax on single-use plastics. The agricultural society (SAC) also dislikes the new tax on single-use plastics and thinks that the 25 trillion pesos goal is too ambitious.
The government’s first concessions — keeping the tax benefits on gasoline and diesel fuel in border regions, not including gold exports in the new export tax — shows that it is willing to listen and make concessions. It may need to make other concessions in the coming weeks in Congress. The Conservative Party, a cherished member of Petro’s new coalition, says that it supports the main goals of the reform but expressed its ‘preoccupation’ with certain things, like tax changes that may hurt competitiveness and job creation or the impact of the new health taxes on low-income households and inflation.
The CD and Cambio Radical (CR) have announced that they will oppose the tax reform. As mentioned above, the CD has been very critical of the new taxes on sugary drinks and ultra-processed foods, saying that ‘basic products’ enjoyed by the middle-class and the poor will become more expensive, and hurt local neighbourhood grocers and shopkeepers. They have also extensively relayed the criticisms of the various business groups and sectoral lobbies. It may look silly and ridiculous, but it’s easier to arouse the public’s anger by telling them that they’ll need to pay more taxes on hamburgers and sweets than it is by getting into a detailed discussion of corporate tax rates and dividends…
Cambio Radical, which is not formally in opposition (yet?) but has been far more distant from the government than other parties (La U, Liberals, Conservatives…), has also announced that it will oppose the tax reform. In his columns in El Tiempo, former vice president Germán Vargas Lleras has criticized the reform, saying it will discourage investment, risk taking and innovation. In a statement, CR argues that the tax reform will increase the prices of basic goods. It also criticizes the abolition of various tax benefits (for agriculture, social housing construction, voluntary pension fund contributions) and the tax increases on corporations, high incomes, (wealthy) pensioners, dividends, capital gains, inheritances. The party complains that the reform lacks an action plan against tax evasion, does not control public spending and does not indicate how the new revenues will be used.
Katherine Miranda, the Green president of the third commission in the House, supports the tax reform but shared some of her ‘preoccupations’, including the impact on gasoline, the film industry (which would lose tax benefits) and on poor households. Her colleague in the upper house, Pacto senator Gustavo Bolívar, strongly supports the tax reform but is also against abolishing tax incentives for the film industry (he is, after all, a former screenwriter).
Miranda is leading the charge for churches and religious congregations to pay taxes. Like in the United States, churches are largely tax-exempt and it has recently become an issue of some political debate. Miranda has been pushing the government to tax churches but Ocampo has so far been quite reticent. Nevertheless, Miranda has been optimistic about her chances, and Gustavo Bolívar supports her.
It’s unlikely that there will ever be a better moment, politically, for the Petro administration to pass an ambitious (and somewhat structural) tax reform. The government is new, fresh and has political capital. It has a solid coalition in Congress, though one that will inevitably get weaker and less reliable as time goes. In other words, it’s now or never for the government to get the big, ambitious tax reform it needs. Let’s see if it can do so before December.
