President Leonel Fernandez requested that Congress eliminate the tax on corn syrup sweeteners established in the recently ratified Tax Reform Law 288-04. The chief executive sent the request to the Senate in a communique dated 30 September, 2004, in which he also points out his intention of correcting the eventual distortions produced by the law as it now stands, particularly in reference to the proposed Free Trade Agreement with the United States and Central American nations. The President asks Senate leader Andres Bautista to use good sense as country needs “coherence in our commercial relations with respect to the multilateral, bilateral and regional obligations the country has taken on.”
Meanwhile, prominent legal scholars are asserting that the ratification of the free trade agreement would automatically nullify the 25% tax on high fructose corn syrup ? the apple of discord in these discussions. Noted jurists Eduardo Jorge Prats, Jottin Cury Jr, and Frank Reynaldo Fermin told Diario Libre reporters that they are in agreement that approval of the treaty will negate the tax. Jorge Prats noted that Article 3 of the Dominican Constitution says that international agreements form part of the legal hierarchy from the moment they are signed and ratified by the Dominican Republic. “The best constitutional doctrine maintains that international treaties occupy a rank, if not constitutional at least supra-legislative,” he added. Nevertheless, this does not mean that ratification repeals the law, but, rather, that once ratified the treaty terms take precedence over the tax laws. Legal scholar Fermin says that the ratification of the free trade agreement wipes out the tax on HFCS because the treaty supersedes the amendment to the tax law.