Maria Inés Solís, from the Christian Social Unity Party (PUSC), expressed her discomfort when she learned about a letter sent by Rodolfo Navas, general manager of Cenecoop to Erick Salazar, manager of Conelecicas, where he requested a contribution of ₡5 million to fight the bill to strengthen public finances, specifically a motion for cooperatives to be taxed.
Solís explained that she went to several cooperatives that were asked for that amount, since among the items there are ₡ 4 million to have meetings with legislators, in addition to a strategic proposal with the journalist Alberto Padilla, who was a communicator at CNN in Spanish and who has a show on local television.
Comrades, I don’t know about you, but nobody has to give me a dime to come to my office. This is outrageous. Do you know what’s the word on the street? That politicians and lawmakers are corrupt, and then these letters come out, and I ask which of my colleagues will be capable of receiving them?”
stated Solís.
The legislator presented the motion for reiteration that was seen in the Special Commission on Fiscal Reform under number 374, seeking to tax cooperatives whose annual revenues are greater than ₡106 million. Therefore, she criticized legislators who have given statements to the press, saying that this sector already pays taxes and that they even have a “special SME treatment.”
Solís claimed that, if cooperatives have a total of ₡ 70 million for the campaign against the fiscal plan, they must also have resources to pay the corresponding taxes.
On Tuesday, CRHoy.com announced Dos Pinos and Cenecoop have led the lobby among legislators. According to the visit logs, the meetings have been held by Francisco Arias, commercial policy advisor of the company, Gonzalo Chaves, manager of this organization, as well as Navas. They were held between July 17th and August 21st, in meetings with María José Corrales and Franggi Nicolás from PLN, Welmer Ramos, and Nielsen Pérez from PAC, as well as Pedro Muñoz from PUSC.
On Monday, the National Council of Cooperatives (Conacoop) began an “education campaign on the contribution of cooperatives to the tax reform” where they say they reached an agreement with the government to pay 20 billion colones in the first year of the tax reform law, so they claim they don’t have to defend themselves from the initiative.
The negotiation ended in August with an agreement in the presence and recognition of the Minister of Finance, Rocío Aguilar, and the Vice Minister Nogui Acosta. However, in recent days a disinformation campaign has been developed with the purpose of falsely claiming that the cooperatives do not make any payment on their surpluses,”
was the statement from Conacoop.