The former Minister of Energy and Mines, Antonio Isa Conde, said on Tuesday that fiscal reform is urgently needed in the Dominican Republic, arguing that consensus is necessary, but that there are structural changes that cannot be made through consensus.
“There are reforms that even if we wish it will not be possible to reach consensus and we are running out of time. we must act now,” said the former official, through a video posted on his Instagram account.
He expressed that he understands that the reform has to be done urgently and that it does not matter if a political price has to be paid, since he understands that more than a price it would be an investment.
“We have to do the things that have to be done for the good of the country,” said Isa Conde.
He added that reforms are not made with words but with deeds, since the government can do them in its own right.
He congratulated the Government for its intention to involve all sectors to carry out the reform, but that this cannot wait, since the situation is getting worse every day.
According to experts on the subject, the Dominican Republic is one of the countries with the lowest tax pressure in the Latin American region and whose evasion levels remain at more than 40% in the case of the Tax on the Transfer of Industrialized Goods and Services (ITBIS); and 60% in the Income Tax (ISR), despite nine tax reforms applied since the 90’s and from 1911, when the Tax Code was applied, to date.
The Economic and Social Council (CES) has not yet received the decree from the Executive Power for the convocation of the dialogue on the tax project which will be one of the greatest challenges for the current administration in view of the fact that it will be necessary to include sectors which today enjoy exemptions and incentives, but also services which are exempted for the general population.
According to the proposals and studies of different organizations and tax experts, the idea is to go towards a broadening of the tax base, which means that more products and services will be taxed, many of them at lower rates and with the difference that this time the guidelines that gave rise to the Tax Code to make the system simpler will be retaken.
