The director of the Tax Department (DGII) said yesterday that there would not be any further tax amnesty or special treatment of tax evaders in the interest of getting all to pay their share. Juan Hernandez stated the government “could not continue to favor those who don’t abide (by the law)”. Hernandez was speaking at a meeting in the Presidential Palace in which the Dominican government signed a financial and commercial information transfer agreement with the US Department of the Treasury. He said that the collection of VAT, with its 43% evasion level last year, has increased by 47%. The same situation has become evident with the collection of the Income Tax that increased 82% from April 2004 to April 2005. Hernandez reported that there are still some distortions that have to be corrected in companies that assign RD$20,000-per-month salaries on their payrolls when they actually pay higher salaries, in order to evade income tax. Also, there are companies that do not report the payment of their employees’ annual bonuses. He stated that they have detected cases of companies with more than 150 employees in which none of the principal executives earned more than RD$22,000 per month. Checking their database, the tax department has found that these individuals own SUV’s, Mercedes Benz vehicles, and even villas in Casa de Campo and Juan Dolio, assets which cannot be justified on their declared salaries. Hernandez said the DR had signed an information agreement with the US in 1989, and that this new agreement has established the mechanism for the transfer of information that could be of interest to Dominican authorities, such as bank deposits belonging to companies and individuals.