Proposed bill to charge taxes on items through courier at a value below 200 dollars.

[MariaRubia]

Prediction:
PRM increases taxes.
PRM loses next election.
Next political party continues with
said tax increase program, collects
millions and the general population
does see a penny of it.

Until they get rid of the rampid corruption
in government (change a culture) there is zero need to increase taxes regardless of their intentions.

I can't see them losing the next election to be honest, Collado is pretty much certain to be the next president given the amount of money he has behind him in my humble opinion. Tax receipts have gone up massively under the PRM administration from what I understand. Sure there is still a lot of corruption, but these days the difference is that you hear about it, newspapers feel free to report it without consequences (and just think of what happened to Nuria Piera's dad back in the day by comparison). Taxing people who earn over 200K a month will not affect many people outside of Piantini and Bella Vista. $4,000 a month is quite a big salary, that's the sort of money a GM of a big resort would get paid or someone who runs a reasonable-sized company. Taxing the AirBnB's has been on the cards forever, likewise Uber.

For those of us who live here and have residency, provided that our income is mainly coming from abroad I don't see there will be any change.

 

[CristoRey]

18% tax on most goods may change people's opinions.
I don't vote so there's only so much I can say about it.
Their country their rules however I do feel sorry for those
who work in the zona francas, fincas and informal sector.

 

[2020]

Article did not mention the 18% tax on chica services

 

[Wayward]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think it will be a violation of DR-CAFTA agreement, so in a few days or weeks all courier companies will join their forces to fight that in court, as it happened a few times already. Who knows, maybe couriers will lose this time, but I hope they won't.

DR-CAFTA only applies to products made in the free trade area, so the vast amounts of Chinese stuff on Amazon wouldn't be counted. But anyway, the proposal is only to charge the 18% VAT and excises, and to leave the customs exceptions. They should probably drop the excises, too, and then you just pay the 18%. SOME taxation of these packages is probably a good idea, even if it's a lump sum RD$200 per parcel, which would save fussing with the invoices.

 

[bob saunders]

Also included:

Tax reform proposes applying VAT to digital services such as Netflix, Uber and Spotify
The Dominican Government has included in its proposed Tax Modernization Law, presented this Monday, a change that will subject digital services to the payment of Value Added Tax (VAT). This measure will be brought to the National Congress tomorrow for debate.

According to the Minister of Finance, Jochi Vicente, this new provision is expected to raise RD$6,084 million annually. The tax will affect popular digital platforms such as Netflix, Spotify, Didi, Uber, Airbnb, among others, which currently do not contribute to the treasury under this concept in the country.

The aim of this measure is to broaden the tax base in the digital sector, which has experienced significant growth in recent years, but which until now had not been fiscally regulated in the same way as traditional services. This change has generated concern among users, who could see an increase in the costs of their subscriptions and everyday services due to the implementation of the tax.

The bill is part of a series of measures aimed at strengthening public finances through increased tax collection, but has also sparked debate over the impact it could have on consumers and the country's digital economy.

https://somospueblo.com/reforma-fiscal-propone-aplicar-iva-a-servicios-digitales-como-netflix-uber-y-spotify/

It does seem to be a bite the hand that feeds you effort.

 

[cavok]

I was just going to write exactly that. The merchants
1. Don't want competition so they can charge a superior price for an inferior product (I have had this happen to me many times)
2. 90 % of the time we have ordered online is mostly because the stuff is not available locally or not close at least. How can you compete with a product you are not even offering?
3. As MariaRubia and cavok pointed out above, the the aduana will start messing with all items, you can say kiss reasonable delivery times goodbye...

It's typical in the DR as seen in many areas, the local businesses are complaining that they cannot compete, but are not ready to do anything that would actually make them able to compete. Business 101: Do things differently or do different things

How about teaching the local merchants to sell also products that are not either c**p in quality or slow in delivery or non-sensical in pricing?

I think you can expect prices to go up even more if this is enacted.

 

[cavok]

Another proposal was to pay property taxes on property worth more than $RD 5 million. Anyone know what the tax rate is?

 

[M4kintosh]

Another proposal was to pay property taxes on property worth more than $RD 5 million. Anyone know what the tax rate is?

1% of the value of the property

Impuesto Patrimonio Inmobiliario (IPI)

dgii.gov.do

 

[chicagoan14]

I see a massive logjam in aduanas if they start taxing everything under $200. I buy a lot of items on eBay that only cost $10. It will be a bureaucratic nightmare paying all those taxes and getting the items released from aduanas. The merchants just don't want competition. They also don't have a fraction of the things I want.

Excellent point. they want a monopoly. When items become closer in price and the difference is basically only the waiting period people will go to the store to get it.

There are some items like health food items that they just tack on a premium. Kodak protein pancakes are less than 5 dollars a box in the US but almost 20 here.

 

[chicagoan14]

Another proposal was to pay property taxes on property worth more than $RD 5 million. Anyone know what the tax rate is?

I saw the proposal for anyone making 900 dollars to be subjected to new rules. Seems trivial given that amount of money.

 

[cavok]

1% of the value of the property

Impuesto Patrimonio Inmobiliario (IPI)

dgii.gov.do

When you consider how many condos are worth $85K USD and up, a 1% is going to be a lot of money to a lot of Dominicans, retirees, and snowbird owners. I've actually never heard of anyone in my condo receiving a property tax bill(?). Is the tax just on the value over 5 million?

 

[cavok]

I saw the proposal for anyone making 900 dollars to be subjected to new rules. Seems trivial given that amount of money.

They need to have a graduated tax like in the US.

 

[M4kintosh]

When you consider how many condos are worth $85K USD and up, a 1% is going to be a lot of money to a lot of Dominicans, retirees, and snowbird owners. I've actually never heard of anyone in my condo receiving a property tax bill(?). Is the tax just on the value over 5 million?

Yes. Over 5M pesos.

 

[M4kintosh]

I saw the proposal for anyone making 900 dollars to be subjected to new rules. Seems trivial given that amount of money.

That's stupid.

The current tax law already promotes all companies based in DR to declare the tax deductions on behalf of the employees.

Every time your monthly/fortnight check is made, the deductions are made immediately and businesses make the payments in a monthly basis.

The new reform eliminates this and now pushes for employees to declare themselves this anually.

 

[drisforme]

Does the government know that DR is already expensive especially in the tourist area ? Adding more tax will make it worse .Most of those new taxes will impact everybody including the consumer who spend vacations in DR .If I will look at today versus 10 years ago when I decided to move to DR ,other countries are coming to my mind for retirement.$ is not everything but it`s one critical factor to decide to move for retirement and for others to go on vacations.

Past 2 years ,I went on vacations in Portugal ,Spain ,Italy . All those developed countries are cheaper than the tourist area of DR. Cheap in terms of rental , buying real estates ,going out in restaurants ....

Personally, I am still bullish for Cabarete because I love kiting in front of my house which is quite a unique setup, but people will certainly start to look at new horizon if the tendance in higher prices continue here more than in other places especially with the lack of infrastructure.....

Peace

 

[MariaRubia]

When you consider how many condos are worth $85K USD and up, a 1% is going to be a lot of money to a lot of Dominicans, retirees, and snowbird owners. I've actually never heard of anyone in my condo receiving a property tax bill(?). Is the tax just on the value over 5 million?

Everyone has to pay IPI, you pay twice a year in March and September on properties worth more than RD$ 9,860,649.00. (If you have more than one property they add them all up). You pay the 1% tax on any amount of your property which exceeds that 9.8M, so basically if your property is worth say RD$ 20M, you pay 1% of RD$ 10M which is 100,000.

They are talking about halving the exempt amount, so everyone pays the 1% on values over 5M. This will bring a lot more people into having to pay IPI since any apartment worth more than $84,000 (most new-build apartments) is going to be subject to IPI.

 

[drpesson]

I was just going to write exactly that. The merchants
1. Don't want competition so they can charge a superior price for an inferior product (I have had this happen to me many times)
2. 90 % of the time we have ordered online is mostly because the stuff is not available locally or not close at least. How can you compete with a product you are not even offering?
3. As MariaRubia and cavok pointed out above, the the aduana will start messing with all items, you can say kiss reasonable delivery times goodbye...

It's typical in the DR as seen in many areas, the local businesses are complaining that they cannot compete, but are not ready to do anything that would actually make them able to compete. Business 101: Do things differently or do different things

How about teaching the local merchants to sell also products that are not either c**p in quality or slow in delivery or non-sensical in pricing?

for example. i looked everywhere for a pepper grinder. couldnt find one so in one minute got one on amazon.

for some car parts easy on amazon and saves alot of travel time and running around

 

[NanSanPedro]

for example. i looked everywhere for a pepper grinder. couldnt find one so in one minute got one on amazon.

for some car parts easy on amazon and saves alot of travel time and running around

Same here for sugar free stuff. I would buy it here in a minute if I could. I just started using InstaCart. Hopefully it works out good.

 

[AlterEgo]

for example. i looked everywhere for a pepper grinder. couldnt find one so in one minute got one on amazon.

Do you find the peppercorns in DR? I bring mine. Ground pepper seems to be a spice DR forgot.

 

[JD Jones]

Do you find the peppercorns in DR? I bring mine. Ground pepper seems to be a spice DR forgot.

Gave up on looking and buy it on Amazon. 3 bucks or so. Go ahead, charge me tax on that.