The National Center of Tax Investigations (CENIT) believes that if a “safety net” isn’t used to protect the losers in the DR-CAFTA, the country would be signing a “death certificate for thousands of businesses”. El Caribe reports that CENIT’s proposed “safety net” would consist of a RD$22 billion fund, equivalent to 2.5% of GDP, to be applied to a program that would allow businesses to compensate for the negative effects of the FTA. According to the Center, the government needs to make tax adjustments of RD$73 billion (8.02% of GDP) to abolish tariffs (0.66% of the GDP), to abolish the exchange rate commission (2.3%), to increase the primary surplus to pay interests on debt (0.61%) and increase investment in education. To obtain these resources the government must not only rationalize its expenses but also needs to redefine the State’s role and restructure public debt, the pending tax reform must extend the application of the VAT (ITBIS) – excluding a reduced group of basic goods and services – and lower the rate gradually from 16% to 13% and generalize retention mechanisms at the source in necessary cases. CENIT, which is headed by economists Jose Segura and Henri Hebrard, also suggests the revision of scaling of the income tax through the reduction of the tax exemption (RD$176,400 annually) and the broadening and modification of the rate (10%, 20%, and 30%). They also suggest the application of a 10% tax on bank interests (with at 20% exemption), a five-year reduction of the corporate income tax rate, the abolition of tariffs on machinery and parts and progressive rates (0.5%, 0.75% and 1%) on property tax instead of the standing 1%, deductible from the corporate Income Tax.