Wednesday April 28th saw an enormous day of protests in at least 26 major cities in Colombia. Although it is difficult to estimate how many people participated, a conservative estimate would be 1,000,000.
The demonstrations were called by the major labor federations, independent unions, and student organization s to protests the Duque government's regressive tax reform and its slow and incompetent response to the Covid-19 pandemic. As usual in Colombia, the main demonstrations were marked by music, street theater, and peaceful well organized contingents. Also as usual, large numbers of "encapuchados" (the hooded and masked ones) took advantage of the demonstrations to engage in large scale vandalism and robbery including major supermarkets, ATM machines, and destruction of public transportation facilities. As usual, the actions of the encapuchados received the lion's share of the press coverage. Protests continued on a smaller scale on Thursday and Friday, and escalated again today. Duque has withdrawn his tax reform for a rewrite and has promised at least one major concession. The original proposal included provisions to include lower ranges of income in the country's income tax. Duque has promised to eliminate this provision from his proposal. Currently, those who earn less than about COP 50,000,000/year (USD 14,000) do not have to pay income tax or file declarations. Other regressive features include expansions of sales taxes, taxes on public utility services, and taxes on gasoline and other fuels. The latter are the focus of the truck drivers who have effectively closed down the country's highway system. Anthony -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#8307): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/8307 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/82519004/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
