The head of the Directorate-General for Internal Revenue (DGII), Juan Hernández, issued yesterday a new regulation to change how DGII collects the US$10 departure tax imposed on airline passengers starting January 1, 1999. The tax is currently collected by DGII at the airport, with passengers forced to have US$10 cash handy, in exchange for which they receive a tax stamp on the back of their boarding pass. Under General Norm No. 9-98, the US$10 will be paid in advance by passengers when they buy their plane tickets. Airlines must submit to DGII the tax collected no later than one working day after each flight. Charters, however, can submit the collected monies on a monthly basis. Hernández said that this should alleviate the bottlenecks and bother that tax collection and inspection sometimes creates among departing passengers.
