Tax dodge row widens, pits government agencies

Santo Domingo. – Central banker Héctor Valdez Albizu on Monday denied that the banks dodge taxes and affirmed that the financial system is among the most solid sectors in the last few decades.

The statement comes in the wake of the row between the Commercial Banks Association (ABA) and the Internal Taxes Agency (DGII) over the latter’s assertion of tax dodging through bank deposits.

ABA denied having paid RD$54 billion interest to his depositors (people and companies) in 2010 I, as the DGII denounced and revealed that it was only RD$20.3 billion.

Interviewed after visiting president Leonel Fernandez in the National Palace, Valdez Albizu said the banks are transparent, regulated and supervised, “and has advanced very much.”

He denied that DGII director Juan Hernandez has linked the banks to tax evasion, and instead attributed to a difference with the companies. “(…) if the problem is in the companies, what the Internal Taxes Agency must do is go on the side of the companies.”

ABA also denies the DGII assertion that of the RD$54 billion in interests paid, the companies received RD$30 billion.

The ABA adds that the DGII’s figures seek to justify Norm 13-2011 which retains 1 percent of the interests paid to companies.

Central banker’s credit card "cloned’

“My credit card was cloned. They clubbed me around six months ago,” the Central banker said, but didn’t specify a figure of the identify theft.