Popular Vanguard Party shares statement for tax justice in Costa Rica

Costa Rica's public finances continue to deteriorate. The Comptroller General's Office itself has warned that the country is experiencing its lowest tax burden in the last decade and a worrying reduction in state revenue, while public debt continues to grow. This reality is not a product of chance or a supposed “lack of resources.” It is the result of a political decision. A class decision.

For years, Rodrigo Chaves maintained that tax evasion was one of the most serious problems facing Costa Rica. He said so while serving as Finance Minister in the Carlos Alvarado administration. He repeated it during his presidential campaign. However, after four years as President of the Republic and now again at the helm of the Ministry of Finance in Laura Fernández's government, the results are evident: tax evasion, tax avoidance, smuggling, and tax privileges continue to drain billions of colones belonging to the Costa Rican people.

The question is unavoidable: Why are they doing nothing?

Because it's easier to collect more taxes from wage earners, small business owners, farmers, and consumers than to confront the large national and foreign economic groups that, for decades, have built complex structures to reduce or avoid paying taxes.

While thousands of micro, small, and medium-sized national producers struggle to survive, the Costa Rican market continues to be flooded with goods brought in through mechanisms of undervaluation, smuggling, tariff privileges, and other unfair practices that destroy national production, eliminate jobs, and increase our economic dependence.

Costa Rica's fiscal problem will not be solved by cutting education, health, social programs, or salaries. Nor will it be solved by imposing new taxes on the people.

It will only be resolved when there is political will to pursue major tax evaders firmly, close the loopholes for tax avoidance, seriously combat smuggling, review unjustified tax privileges, and recover for the State the billions that currently end up in the hands of those who concentrate the most wealth.

From our perspective, this reality confirms that the bourgeois State acts as a guarantor of the interests of big capital. The law is harsh on those who barely manage to survive, but extraordinarily lenient with those who accumulate enormous fortunes through legal and illegal privileges.

The Popular Vanguard Party demands a genuine progressive tax reform, where those who have more pay more; a real offensive against tax evasion, avoidance, and fraud; an effective fight against organized smuggling; the protection of national production and small and medium-sized producers; as well as the elimination of all those privileges that benefit large corporations while impoverishing the working people.

Costa Rica doesn't need more austerity for the majority; it needs tax justice!