By The Star Staff
A law passed 15 years ago has given way to Law 154-2010 and Law 52-2022, which saved the withholding of over $1.7 billion annually in government tax collections, officials said earlier this week.
The promoter of the effort for the development of Law 73 of 2008, better known as the “Puerto Rico Development Economic Incentives Act,” Rep. José Aponte Hernández, said “the approval of this law (73-2008) was a long process, where we listened to all sectors of our economy.”
“Today, 15 years later, this law was used by the Treasury secretary as a mechanism to provide a tax platform to foreign corporations operating in Puerto Rico,” the former speaker of the island House of Representatives said. “This highlights the history of that effort and what we achieved at that time.”
“Law 73-2008 was endorsed by the U.S. Department of the Treasury as part of the transition to Law 154,” he added. “About 15 points of the law were used in the new contributory parameters that guarantee the permanence of almost 20 percent of the government budget.”
From the 2008 law, the new Law 52 uses Article 8, Section 5 (Credits), which details that “any exempt business that has a decree granted under this Law or under the laws of above incentives may claim an investment credit equal to Fifty percent (50%) of the special eligible investment made in Puerto Rico.”
It also uses Article 9, Section 6 (Industrial Investment Credit), which states that “Any investor may claim a credit for industrial investment equal to fifty percent (50%) of [his or her] eligible investment made after the approval of this Law, to be taken in two (2) or more terms: the first half of such credit in the year in which the eligible investment is completed and the balance of this appropriation, in the following years.”