MONTEVIDEO – The Uruguayan government, starting Jan. 1, 2017, will implement a “modest” income tax increase that will impact by about “80 percent only the 10 percent of the population with the most resources,” President Tabare Vazquez announced Monday in the central city of Batlle y Ordoñez.

“There are not going to be new taxes. Some of the IRPF income tax groups are going to be modified, the highest group ... so that those who have more pay more,” said Vazquez, who presided at a meeting of the Council of Ministers open to the public.

Vazquez said that more than 60 percent of the population will not pay this IRPF increase and that there will also be a 2 percent reduction of the Value Added Tax, or IVA, for the entire population.

These measures will comprise part of the Accounting Evaluation law that the government will present to Parliament in late June to correct some of the country’s macroeconomic inequalities and which will be explained in detail to the press this afternoon by Economy Minister Danilo Astori.

Before that, the bill will be presented to the center-left Broad Front, the political coalition backing the current government.

The president reiterated, as Astori has already announced last week, that the Accounting Evaluation law will not modify the social policies to which the government has committed itself.