Reporter Idonelia Perez Blanco, writing for Hoy, finds that consumers in the Dominican Republic are responsible for sustaining the government through taxes on consumer goods, fuels, travel and other incidentals. According to the article, 44% of the government?s local income comes from the pockets of consumers. During the first five months of the year, these taxes produced twice the amount of government revenues generated by income taxes. The figures from the Internal Revenue Department (DGII) show that the government received RD$11.38 billion in taxes, of which only RD$5.22 billion was generated by income taxes from businesses. The largest chunk of this money came from the VAT tax called ?ITBIS?, accounting for some RD$7.2 billion of the RD$11.3 billion total. Rum, beer and cigarette taxes produced RD$2.7 billion. The DGII reported that in the first five months of 2004 they had collected over RD$26 billion, an increase of about 59% over the figures for 2003.