Fiscal Reform

The Fiscal Reform (Against)
There are two things in this world that are certain: death and taxes. They are some sort of tribute that we as a community offer the government to get benefits inreturn; benefits like education, health, social care, and edifications. But when I see kids, teenagers, adults, and even elderly crawling in the streets, sick and homeless, I wonder what we are gettingin return. When I see young people working 15 hours a day out in the sun for less than 20 pesos, again I wonder what we are getting. What are we, Dominicans, getting in return from all the taxes wepay? A 4.6 billion dollars deficit is what we get, which is twice larger than last year’s.
Now the government wants to implant this fiscal reform, and increase the tax rate from 16% to 18%.This might look like a small change, but it affects a large amount of us, and the reason why I don’t say “all of us”, is because the people who never pay taxes don’t get affected. These people belong tothe upper class, who…. The social class that gets prejudiced the most from this reform is the middle class, because they are the ones who pay bills. Maybe if more people in this country paid bills,this reform wouldn’t be necessary, just like in Europe; many European countries have a tax rate above 18%, but at least there are more people paying taxes and they do get benefits in return. That’swhat makes it fair for everyone.

Another issue I’d like to discuss with you is the money investments the government makes. What happens to the money we pay once it gets to the State? Nobodyknows. We keep seeing all these overrated constructions that we don’t really know how much money has been spent on them, or how important they are. There is a huge lack of transparence, and that’sexactly why all of the sudden we are found with this large debt in our hands. What guarantee do we have that all the taxes we pay will be used to appease the deficit? If we knew what the government...