NewsWhore
07-09-2009, 03:30 PM
The full bench of the Supreme Court decided that the 3% tax levied on the phone companies by the municipalities was null and void. The 3% tax was on the gross yearly income from phone calls in each city. The court accepted the position of unconstitutionality brought against article 284 of Law 176-07 that deals with the National District and the municipalities, by the Dominican Association of Telecommunications Enterprises (Adomtel), last 25 September 2008.
The plaintiffs argued that the telecommunications industry has been reserved as a taxpayer for the national authorities, which evidently excludes the municipal authorities, as a lesser political entity, from the power to tax these businesses in their cities. At the same time, they argued that by applying these constitutional limits to the specific case of the telecommunications companies, it is possible to establish that the tax power of the local authorities cannot affect this service, since the special law that regulates them and from the constitutional dispositions, previously examined, it is evident that this is an area reserved exclusively for the national tax agency as the original provider of this service.
The Supreme Court warned that it was evident that the municipal officials' performance, of exercising in and of themselves ways to collect the invoices of the telecommunications companies, pretending to be based on the dispositions of article 284, are totally incompatible with what is set out in article 4 of the law, that is part of a former special law that had not been specifically annulled by the general disposition and later laws. The court said it should be established that the text under question becomes unconstitutional for the specific case of the telecommunications companies, because its application to this sector, as has been put into evidence, violates the Constitution. This is because the municipal authorities have given it a wrong interpretation.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#4)
The plaintiffs argued that the telecommunications industry has been reserved as a taxpayer for the national authorities, which evidently excludes the municipal authorities, as a lesser political entity, from the power to tax these businesses in their cities. At the same time, they argued that by applying these constitutional limits to the specific case of the telecommunications companies, it is possible to establish that the tax power of the local authorities cannot affect this service, since the special law that regulates them and from the constitutional dispositions, previously examined, it is evident that this is an area reserved exclusively for the national tax agency as the original provider of this service.
The Supreme Court warned that it was evident that the municipal officials' performance, of exercising in and of themselves ways to collect the invoices of the telecommunications companies, pretending to be based on the dispositions of article 284, are totally incompatible with what is set out in article 4 of the law, that is part of a former special law that had not been specifically annulled by the general disposition and later laws. The court said it should be established that the text under question becomes unconstitutional for the specific case of the telecommunications companies, because its application to this sector, as has been put into evidence, violates the Constitution. This is because the municipal authorities have given it a wrong interpretation.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#4)