A sitting Colombian congressman and member of the historic ruling Pacto Historico coalition has publicly denounced the national government’s newly proposed tax reform, framing the policy as a concession to International Monetary Fund demands that shifts nearly all fiscal burden onto low- and middle-income households while delivering generous tax breaks to the nation’s wealthiest elite. In a public post shared to his official X social media account, House of Representatives member Gabriel Becerra, who previously mounted a campaign for the Colombian presidency, argued that the draft legislation deliberately penalizes working families and middle-class citizens while offering targeted relief to the country’s most economically powerful groups. Becerra went on to issue a stark warning to the sitting administration, noting that policymakers appear to have overlooked the widespread civil unrest that erupted across the nation in 2021, when then-President Ivan Duque attempted to roll out a nearly identical tax overhaul during his 2018–2022 term, sparking mass national protests that disrupted public services and forced the government to abandon the controversial proposal. A line-by-line breakdown of the current draft bill confirms the core of Becerra’s allegations: dozens of basic food staples that currently qualify for reduced or zero value-added tax will be reclassified as taxable goods under the new rules. Items set to lose preferential tax status include coffee, granulated sugar, common vegetable cooking oils, pasta, and wheat flour, while a broad range of currently tax-exempt staple goods including beans, lentils, chickpeas, corn, table salt, fresh artisanal cheeses, and nearly all unprocessed fresh fruits and vegetables will be newly subject to standard sales tax rates. The proposed reform extends beyond grocery costs to impose additional financial strain on middle-class households, with planned tax hikes on personal healthcare services and adjusted income tax brackets that raise liabilities for earners in mid-tier wage ranges. Meanwhile, the nation’s highest-net-worth individuals are set to receive significant cuts to their mandatory wealth tax contributions, a provision Becerra decried as a gross inversion of fiscal fairness. “This policy forces the people who already have the least financial security to pay even more, while the tiny fraction of citizens who hold the most wealth get a lighter tax bill,” Becerra stated in a public remark. “This is an unmitigated policy disaster for ordinary Colombians.” The controversial draft tax bill has already drawn widespread pushback from opposition political blocs, who have raised a slate of additional unaddressed concerns about the proposal’s long-term impacts on household cost of living and national economic stability.