The Dominican Republic during 2022 continued with a solid performance in its economy, highlighting the areas of tourism and services that continued to develop significantly and influence growth, followed by the health sector, other service activities, public administration, transport and storage, free trade zones, and financial services; for a growth of 5.5% as of September 2022.
The continued development of an adequate legal framework has contributed to increasingly significant investment in sectors such as tourism, health, transportation, manufacturing, free trade zones, among others.
As a result of the pandemic, the legal framework for corporate affairs has continued its progress towards the digitisation process, highlighting this year the enabling by the Chamber of Commerce and Production of Santo Domingo of the registration process of digital signatures. Also, as a goal for 2023, the signature engine should be enabled to allow the counterpart signature platform by the parties through the platform of the Chamber of Commerce and Production of Santo Domingo Inc as well as the enabling of digital services for all the Chambers of Commerce and Production nationwide.
Likewise, institutions such as the General Directorate of Internal Taxes (DGII), the Attorney General’s Office (PGR), the Real Estate Jurisdiction, the General Directorate of Immigration, among others, continue to offer and apply updates that guarantee their operations and the development of investment in the Dominican Republic via online platforms.
By the end of 2022, the Federation of Chambers of Commerce (FEDOCAMARAS) also announced an increase and simplification of its service fee schedule, which has increased the costs of registration of documents, renewals, and modifications of the commercial registry, all with a view to having all services provided within 24 hours.
In the same vein continues the development of companies related to Fintech and e-commerce services, which have experienced a boom in the post-pandemic era.
Within the legal system, during 2022 we have also observed a continuous development of tax policies, with the approval of rules such as Rule 01-2022 on Reorganisation of Companies, Rule 04-22 on regularisation of the Simplified Taxation Process, Rule 11-22 on granting benefits contained in international agreements to avoid double taxation, among other rules that seek to adapt our tax policies to the economic reality.
Likewise, there is the Draft of Regulation on Capital Gains, which is in its second phase of public discussion, and are still being drafted the potential regulation for the application of VAT on digital services rendered outside the Dominican Republic, which seeks to regulate services provided via digital platforms such as AIRBNB, NETFLIX, UBER, NETFLIX, DIDI, among others.
Regulations that, as has been said before, should be welcomed as they help to fix the position of our tax administration in certain aspects, to avoid the uncertainty of the criteria applicable in cases of reorganisations and sales of companies and/or assets.
Finally, it is estimated that during 2023 we will see a significant continuity of economic growth with the development of new areas and growth in areas other than the tourism sector, with special attention to the areas of the health sector, real estate, services, and transportation – as well as the issuance of new regulations that seek to stimulate the continued development of the corporate market and legal practice aimed at good corporate governance and compliance with laws that seek to be in line with international markets.
Source:
Chambers & Partners
