2004 – Page 75

The new changes in the tax code go into effect tomorrow. Law 288-04 calls for a 4% increase in the VAT and higher alcohol and cigarette taxes. Publicity will be taxed at a 6% rate until December of this year and in 2005 the accounts will be taxed at a 10% rate. Your phone bills …

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Former governor of the Central Bank Guillermo Caram of the PRSC opposition party writes today in El Caribe of the inertia that seems to have taken hold of the Fernandez government. He expresses particular concern for the government’s questionable ability to modify the most criticized aspects of the Mejia government. Caram points out that the …

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Prosecutors in the National District and elsewhere in the province of Santo Domingo told reporters from Diario Libre that the new Code of Penal Procedures was being implemented without any problems within the jurisdiction. Jose Manuel Hernandez Peguero and Perfecto Acosta said they were working together with police investigators and examining magistrates in using the …

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The National Housing Institute (INVI) was rocked yesterday by a scandal that involves its own staffers, as well as an Armed Forces captain. According to Felipe Abreu Roedan, the director of the INVI, a group of people working in the legal office of the institute allegedly falsified documents that permitted them to sell public housing …

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The former chief of the National Police, retired Major General Jaime Marte Martinez, was visibly upset when reporters asked him about the 15 vehicles that were supposedly recovered from thieves and found to have been in his possession at one time or another. “I have not taken a tricycle, much less a vehicle,” said Marte …

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At least nine shots were fired at a vehicle belonging to commentator and television journalist Euri Cabral as he drove along Carmen Mendoza de Cornielle Street last night. Three of the shots hit the front windshield but missed Cabral, the driver, and his passenger friends. Another three shots went through the rear windshield and exited …

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The Reformist Party (PRSC), the smallest of the major political parties in the Dominican Republic, currently employs 148 people in the Chamber of Deputies, a largesse that costs the government RD$1.465 million each month in salaries alone. There are 54 “advisors,” 25 auxiliary personnel, 21 assistants, 17 secretaries, 8 drivers, 6 messengers, 5 “security” staff, …

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Public Works Minister Freddy Perez says that the budget for the government’s first 100 days of its administration has been redirected to the eastern region of the country that suffered damages from Hurricane Jeanne. Perez said that the eastern provinces lost 13 bridges that were knocked down by swollen rivers, while more than 20 other …

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The powerful lobby group comprised of the Central Romana and Casa Vicini sugar producing companies has requested that President Leonel Fernandez ask the United States to revise the sugar-related provisions included in the free trade agreement that was signed with the United States, as reported in Hoy newspaper. Because the DR’s agreement has been docked …

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University professor Federico Cuello denies that he feels the DR would be better off to discontinue the FTA proceedings with the US, as stated in DR1’s summary of his commentary from El Caribe yesterday. “But whether it is justified or not, it is a done deal and all we can do now is to try …

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