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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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, … <\/p>\n