Tax Expenditures In The Dominican Republic

This paper takes a broad approach in the sense that only the fundamental structure elements of each tax system are considered as part of the benchmark tax system. Moreover, this paper will go beyond the traditional tax expenditure reporting by taking into account an ideal tax system with minor distortions as part of the benchmark. Because of having an ideal tax system as a norm, the report makes some judgments about the appropriateness of the ideal tax structure in the Dominican Republic and the estimates of tax expenditures imply the extent to which the existing tax system is deviated from the ideal tax system. This paper provides empirical estimates of the foregone tax revenue of each tax provision for the year 2002 which deviates from the benchmark of the tax system. The tax systems we examine include the individual income tax, the corporate income tax, the tax on the transfer of industrialized goods and services (ITBIS), the selective tax on consumption, and import duties. In the other part of this paper we discuss the concept of the tax expenditures in order to facilitate the understanding and estimation of the tax expenditures. Finally this paper presents preliminary estimates of the foregone revenues of tax expenditures.