Businessmen are divided on whether or not there should be tariff reform as the 1 July date of the GATT system nears. On 1 July, the DR will begin using the GATT valuation system. In this system, imports are taxed based on the real price of the item as stated in the invoice, or the invoices of identical or similar items. At present, taxable values are set by the interested parties, in other words the government and business people. That makes those values vulnerable to the interests of importers. Some importers now fear that applying the actual values will result in a significant increase in the cost of goods, and thus their prices to consumers will go up and cause reduced sales. Business leaders Antonio Espin and Ignacio Mendez have urged the government to reduce the taxable levels on finished products from the current 20% maximum duty to 15%. The duty on raw material imports would drop from 3% to 0%, the duty on manufactured products would go from 14 to 10% and on raw material for finished products would drop from 8 to 5%.
