The middle class of the Dominican Republic is paying close to 25% of their income for basic services: water, lights, telephone, garbage collection and cable TV.
The Listin Diario gives the example of an employee that makes RD$45,000 per month and takes home nearly RD$41,000. Of this sum, over RD$10,000 go to services-RD$4,000 for electricity, RD$4,000 for telephone with Internet connection, RD$1,000 for the cell phone, water and garbage collection are around RD$550.00. With the remaining RD$29,662, the real expenses begin: rent or mortgage payment, education, fuels, and, oh yes, food.
The newspaper points out that over the past two years the price of basic services has increased 100%, especially when the dollar went to above 50:1.
Since last August, the cost of the US dollar has decreased by 50%, but this reduction has not been reflected in the cost of services.
On the contrary, in October the Tax Reform was implemented and that added more taxes to the middle class, including a supposed selective consumer tax of 10% on telecommunications that then totaled 28% on the phone bills, an additional 4% on the VAT tax, going from 12% to 16%. And these are just a few of the examples available.