In order to mitigate the economic effects of the crisis that the productive sector of the Dominican Republic is going through caused by the Covid-19 Pandemic, which affects the income of the families of Dominican employees whose employment contracts have been suspended by the Total or partial closure of companies, the Dominican State through Decree number 685-20 dated November 30, 2020, especially for the month of December 2020, has created the social assistance fund “Christmas for employees”, Through which all employees suspended and registered in the Employee Solidarity Assistance Fund (FASE), in its PHASE I modality, established by the Government through Decree number 143-20 and its modifications (Decrees numbers 184-20 and 358- 20 of August 19, 2020), will receive from the Dominican State the payment of a proportion of Christmas salary, in addition to the usual monthly sum paid in this modality of FA SE I, which will be carried out as follows:
- The proportion to be paid will be one-twelfth of the total amount of the funds that were deposited monthly in the employee’s bank account through PHASE I.
- The Ministry of Labor will be in charge of preparing the information on the funds to be disbursed to each employee registered in PHASE I and will request payment from the Ministry of Finance, an institution that after validating the information will proceed to make said payment no later than December 15 of 2020, in the same bank account of the employee registered in the FASE program and will send the employer an email as proof of said payment.
- The employer can freely contribute any amount of money in favor of the employee in order to increase his income at the end of the year and these bonuses will be classified as expenses before the General Directorate of Internal Taxes (DGII) and will be deductible from the Tax on the Income (ISR) for the year 2020. These amounts will not be considered as ordinary salary for the calculation of labor benefits and acquired rights of the employee.
As for the employees registered in the FASE program under the FASE II modality, they must receive payment of the Christmas salary in accordance with the provisions of the Labor Code in its Article 219, which consists of one-twelfth of the ordinary salary earned by the employee in the calendar year. When the employer makes this calculation, she must take into account the RD $ 5,000.00 per month advanced by the Government to the employee through the PHASE II program, since it is part of the employees’ ordinary salary.
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