Advisory group on Revenue Code overhaul resumes work on recommendations
By The Star Staff
The advisory group that would overhaul the island Revenue Code has resumed its work on certain recommendations that will be delivered to Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia next year.
The advisory group, chaired by Treasury Secretary and Government Chief Financial Officer Francisco Parés Alicea, said the recommendations will be delivered in May.
During the new work session, the transition process for manufacturing companies to leave the Law 154 excise tax system and move to Act 52-2022, which establishes a new income tax regime for manufacturing companies that opt for the change, will be discussed. The analysis of the recommendations that represent a potential fiscal cost will also be finalized, among other matters, to comply with the objectives outlined under Executive Order 2021-072 of Oct. 7, 2021 and, in turn, with the Principle of Fiscal Neutrality.
“In these meetings that will take place every month, the work will be focused on the recommendations regarding income tax, consumption taxes and the inspection of measures against tax evasion, specifically,” Parés Alicea said. “We are going to begin to discuss the work plan and the most important recommendations that arose in the meetings that we held for three months, both with government officials and with representatives of the private sector.”
He stressed that Pierluisi’s priority is to achieve a fair, clear and efficient tax system before the end of the current four-year term.
“The governor summoned us again to present him with a report with final recommendations,” Parés Alicea said.
The working group created under Executive Order 2021-072 is made up of the Treasury secretary, who serves as president; the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Juan Blanco Urrutia; the executive director of the Fiscal Agency and Financial Advisory Authority (AAFAF by its Spanish initials), Omar Marrero Díaz, along with the main financial officer of AAFAF, Luis Umpierre Ferrer; the secretary of Economic Development and Commerce (DDEC by its Spanish acronym), Manuel Cidre, along with the assistant secretary of operations at DDEC, Humberto Mercader; and the executive director of the Municipal Revenue Collections Center, Reinaldo Paniagua Latimer and his adviser, Miguel Fonseca Crespo.
On behalf of the private sector are Edwin Ríos, from the Association of Economists; the chairman of the Tax Affairs Committee of the Certified Public Accountants Association, CPA Felipe Rodríguez; the president of the Chamber of Commerce, Juan Alvarado Zayas; the representative of the Industrialists Association, Carlos Serrano; economist Gustavo Vélez; and attorney Kenneth Rivera and CPA Denisse Flores, who are appointed by the governor.