Looming tax hikes in Dominican Republic prompt first call to protest

Santo Domingo.- The Alternative Social Forum (FSA) on Tuesday became the first organization to call for a protest over the tax reform bill which is expected to sail through Congress.

The FSA said the protest march for the sectors that will be affected will be at 9am next Friday, in front of Congress and then 5pm at Parque Independencia the same day.

The organization affirms that the Government can get the funds it needs through other means without charging more taxes on working people and the middle class.

The FSA proposes a productive reform, based on a real economy and not parasitic, that energizes the entire national production in the countryside and the city.

"All idle and parasitic money must be linked with the national production and in return receive tax breaks as an incentive. The purpose is to increase and intensify production in the countryside and the city, increase exports, create more jobs, with the consequent change of the existing economic model based on tourism, free trade zone, remittances, debt and imports," the FSA says a in a document.

It said the money from corruption should be recovered and the government should be more efficient in preventing, combating and punishing it. “In this manner more than 133 billion pesos could be collected annually. And this calls for reversing the burden of proof, that whosoever commits a crime have to prove that you haven’t done so and should have to prove it.”

Moreover, the FSA said that all ill-gotten gains, proceeds from corruption, no sacred cows, should be expropriated and those responsible sent to prison.

"We appeal to a of 50 percent reduction in the publicsector payroll, more austere salaries for senior officials and officers,eliminating lavish and disproportionate pensions, their duplicity andimmorality."

In the statement, the Alternative Social Forum believesthat the country should be declared in a state of emergency