The Ministry of Finance ensures that the taxes for private health proposed in the bill on tax reform will be returned to the consumer.
Nogui Acosta, deputy minister of the portfolio, reacted to an article published by CRHoy.com exposing the increase of taxes with the Government’s proposals. Costa Ricans will have to pay about two thousand colones more for an appointment with a specialist doctor.
They will return (those two thousand colones) to the user, but, as long as we do not have a return mechanism (if no card is used), the tax remains at zero,”
said Acosta.
The bill stipulates that until the return system is in operation, the health services will remain exempt.
The deputy minister argued that, when a good is exonerated, it applies to the rich and the poor alike, therefore, the vital thing is to look for mechanisms to return it to those of the lower classes, but as always, the upper class will pay higher prices because they consume more goods. But the possibility of exoneration has no place.
Even the Treasury is making a document to define how much money they will receive with the new taxes because they intend to generate resources to alleviate the fiscal deficit.
According to data in the reports of the Comptroller General of the Republic (CGR) in the last six years, budgetary under-executions meant 2.5 trillion colones, equivalent to 7.2% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), that is, the same amount considered as missing in the public finances of the State after offsetting the income and expenses.
However, Acosta argued that these are resources that the government never had in its hands.