The government consulting body, the Economic and Social Council, has published a paid ad in leading newspapers today, Friday 26 October to make the point that the government has presented expenditures for RD$469.4 billion in its 2013 budget, without financial applications, and that this total is based on the 2012 budget, where the fiscal deficit was 6.5% of the GDP that was a five-fold increase compared to 2011. It says that CES specialists presented a RD$410 billion spending proposal, without including financial applications. This proposal is a 23% increase over government spending in 2011, and would mean the government would not have to increase taxation.
The CES adds that a discussion is also pending on the integral fiscal pact as ordered in Art. 36 of National Development Strategy Law 1-12.
The CES states that it trusts that the rush to present the 2013 Budget will not be an obstacle to harmonizing the fiscal pact in the medium and long term, as well as pacts for the electricity and education sectors.
The National Business Council (Conep) is calling for openness in Congress when passing the 2013 National Budget. In a letter to Senate president Reinaldo Pared Perez, Conep president Manuel Diez Cabral called for the legislators to foster an open discussion on the taxation bill so that it may contribute to reducing informality in Dominican business and improve competitiveness of productive sectors as established in the National Development Strategy 2030, Law 1-12.
The president of the Association of Industries of the Dominican Republic (AIRD), Ligia Bonetti called for the government to include facilities for reducing obstacles to export in the fiscal reform so that Dominicans may compete fairly with exporters in Central America and the Caribbean. Ligia Bonetti met with the Administrative Minister of the Presidency Jose Ramon Peralta yesterday, Thursday 25 October to discuss measures that could support exports in the new budget. Bonetti said that the obstacles included exporters having to bear the burden of the 1% on assets tax, the ITBIS by Customs, and the high cost of electricity.
Taxation expert Edgar Barnichta Geara told Diario Libre said the bill just seeks to provide more revenues for the government, and does not serve as an instrument for economic development.
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