Almost a year after the Civil Aviation Board (JAC) ordered domestic and foreign airline operators to stop charging US$10 dollars to Dominicans not residing in the country, tourist card collections increased by 30 million pesos in the first half of 2023.
Data from the General Directorate of Internal Taxes (DGII) in its monthly report shows that collections reached 2,598.2 million pesos in the same period of 2022, surpassing what was achieved in the first semester of 2022, of 2,301.7 million pesos.
This is P60.1 million above the average collected from 2013 until now, which is about P2,538.1 million each year.
Said amount, moreover, is 59.7% close to the total collected last year, which stood at 4,350.1 million pesos, the year in which this tax achieved the highest collections in the last decade.
According to the Ministry of Tourism (Mitur), collections increased in a context in which the arrival of tourists to the Dominican Republic also increased, with a growth of 10% during the first six months of the year, reaching 5.3 million tourists.
In this regard, the president of the Dominican Airlines Association (ADLA), Omar Chahín, stated that, to his knowledge, the airlines have found it difficult to comply with the regulations established in Resolution 217-22.
The document, issued on September 23 last year, granted a period of 45 days to the airlines to stop this charge to Dominicans, according to Diario Libre.
“The ticket office distribution systems are many and they are very complex. It would be necessary to differentiate in some way what is an international passenger from a Dominican one. It is not as simple as saying it,” he said.
He added that this is a complicated process for international airlines, which do not have a differentiated platform for the sale of air tickets for Dominicans, but sell tickets to people from all over the world.
He recalled that passengers buy tickets both through travel agencies and websites. “That is where the biggest problem lies. So far, no solution has been found,” he said.
He explained that for Dominican airlines “it is easier” to comply with the ordinance, and some of them have stopped issuing the tourist card charge by performing this procedure “manually”, although he avoided mentioning any airline operator in particular.
Source: Arecoa
