“Petro government’s new tax reform, to be presented in July, would have one month of life in the legislature”
Portafolio reports:
“Zero and counting four. The President of the Republic, Gustavo Petro, announced that on 20 July 2026 he will present a new tax reform bill to Congress.
“‘The president presents it, but the president can also withdraw it – it could be filed on 20 July and withdrawn by 7 August,’ said Lisandro Junco, former director of the DIAN.
“‘It is not at all advisable to resort to demanding wealth taxes from companies when what Colombia truly needs to increase its tax revenue is to boost production. It needs to improve the investment climate and attract investment,’ added Henry Amorocho, professor at the Universidad del Rosario.
“Based on what was presented in the most recent tax reforms that have been introduced and rejected, one can infer that this new bill could include taxes related to surcharges for the mining and financial sectors. Additionally, they could seek to increase the carbon tax that affects gasoline and diesel. Another package of taxes that they have tried to approve in previous bills is related to health taxes, increasing VAT on spirits, online games of chance, among others.
“Since President Gustavo Petro took office in 2022, four tax reforms have been presented with this announcement, but only one has been approved.”
Other Articles on Same Topic
- The new Congress has no defined majorities: this is the radiography of its power before the presidential elections (El Espectador)
Assessment
Colombia’s tax reform continues with yet another attempt – the fourth under the Petro government. Unfortunately, the political outlook remains bleak. The proposed impuestos saludables, which would increase VAT on alcohol and online gambling, are sound, evidence-based policy. Alcohol causes nearly 10,000 deaths annually in Colombia and is the leading risk factor for death among 15- to 49-year-olds.
But the political arithmetic has not changed. The Petro government has failed to secure a congressional majority for any of its three previous tax reform attempts. The most recent collapse in late 2025 saw the alcohol tax provisions stripped after intense lobbying by global spirits industry actors, including Pernod Ricard and Brown-Forman. The new Congress that takes office on July 20, has no defined majorities – 63% of legislators are new faces – and the Petro presidency ends on August 7. As experts quoted in the article note, the reform could be filed and withdrawn within weeks.
The pattern repeats: the Petro government proposes alcohol tax increases as part of broader fiscal packages, the alcohol industry mobilises to block them, and the reforms either fail or are gutted. Each cycle reinforces the industry’s narrative that alcohol taxes are politically unviable – which becomes self-fulfilling when corporate lobbying dominates the legislative process.
This is remarkable because raising alcohol taxes is popular among a vast majority of the Colombian people:
- 84% of Colombians support better alcohol policy,
- 62% believe higher alcohol taxes reduce alcohol consumption, and
- 59% say the alcohol industry interferes with policymaking.
This popular support highlights that people view alcohol harm as a national concern, and that more ambitious and evidence-based alcohol policy measures have broad backing. It illustrates the conflict between the interests of multinational alcohol corporations seeking to extract profits from the country and the people on the other hand who want their communities to be safe and their families to be healthy, protected from preventable alcohol harms.
For alcohol policy advocates, the renewed attention to the benefits of alcohol taxation is an opportunity to shape the public discourse by highlighting the benefits and showing how society would prosper.
The work now will also be constructive for the work that is needed when the focus shifts to the presidential transition. Whichever candidate wins the upcoming election will inherit both Colombia’s health financing crisis and the unfinished business of alcohol tax reform. Building cross-party support for impuestos saludables before the new government takes office is essential – otherwise alcohol taxation will keep being pushed from one political cycle to the next – and that is only in the interest of the multinational alcohol giants that seek profit maximisation in Colombia.