The Colombian National Tax and Customs Department (DIAN) organised the first Contribution Culture Week in Florencia, Caquetá department, in which one thousand students from the country participated
©DIAN
In order to promote the values relating to contributing to society among citizens, the National Tax and Customs Department (DIAN), in alliance with EUROsociAL+ through the FIIAPP democratic governance policies area, held a Contribution Culture Week in the municipality of Florencia, Caquetá department, where they gathered the best practices related to a contribution culture integrating both academia and government entities.
EUROsociAL+ promotes tax education as a part of an active, supportive and participatory citizenship and is aware of the importance of the citizenship’s duty to pay taxes but also of their rights so that the tax money is used in an effective and efficient manner.
This task requires a cultural change that must begin within the tax administrations themselves, but it also implies strategic alliances with the educational system so that the cultural transformation has the desired impact and is sustainable and is achieved through using the appropriate educational approach.
EUROsociAL+ is accompanying DIAN and the Colombian educational institutions in these efforts in two areas, with special emphasis on the problems arising post-conflict and on peace building.
- It is promoting the initiative by the Accounting and Fiscal Support Hubs, known as NAFs, which are free university tax clinics for low-income people and micro-entrepreneurs. These hubs are already functioning in 79 Colombian universities, 13 of them in the areas most affected by the armed conflict.
- In addition, DIAN has also achieved an important alignment with Colombian educational institutions in an open and participatory manner, consolidating consensual educational methodologies that encourage Colombian teachers to address the issue in the classroom.
The presence of teachers and officials from educational institutions in Caquetá, Bogotá and Medellín, presenting the good practices developed in the classrooms over the last year opens an important scenario to advance the consolidation of fiscal education as a public policy in Colombia.
Finally, during these seminars the winning students were awarded prizes in the story contest, the school contribution culture contest and the Colombian NAF 2.0 audiovisual contest.
