Tax hike to affect food products in January 2016

Santo Domingo.- The Internal Taxes (DGII) announced that starting January 2016 the Tax on the Transfer of Industrialized Goods and Services (ITBIS) increase from 13% to 16% will be applied to mass consumption products such as coffee, chocolate, edible oils, yogurt, sugar and butter.

The measure, which is included in the tax increases ordered by Law 253-12, will cause increases in the prices of those products, starting in the first days of January or as soon as merchants begin to transfer the tax increase to consumers.

Grupo Ramos, owner of La Sirena, Pola and Ole supermarkets, has already announced that it would absorb the increase during January. Other supermarkets are expected to follow.

The ITBIS increase and the extension of its base are some of the measures included in the 2012 fiscal reform. ITBIS collections totaled RD$78 billion in 2015.