The president of the People’s Force (FP) party and former President of the Republic, Leonel Fernández, requested this Tuesday the withdrawal of all tax increase proposals contained in the fiscal reform titled “Anti-Crisis Plan for sustainability and the protection of the economy,” as well as a reformulation of the 2026 General State Budget that allows for prioritizing public spending, correcting budgetary distortions, and alleviating the burden on productive sectors.
In the former president’s view, the initiative promoted by the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) government constitutes a disguised tax reform whose true purpose is to obtain more revenue to cover the excessive growth of current spending by the current administration.
While presenting a new edition of La Voz del Pueblo, Fernández maintained that the tax proposals put forward by the Government lack economic justification and are unnecessary given the performance exhibited by the Dominican economy, according to official figures released by the Central Bank itself and the constant pronouncements by the authorities highlighting the growth and resilience of the national economy.
Likewise, he proposed a reformulation of the General State Budget for the year 2026 to reduce and reorient expenditure items, demanded compliance with the full indexation of salaries established in the Tax Code, proposed the restoration of the full deduction of educational expenses, and called for the approval of the fiscal flexibility initiatives submitted by the Fuerza del Pueblo through Senator Omar Fernández in favor of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises, the agricultural sector, and entrepreneurs.
During his speech, the former president questioned the official narrative used to justify the new tax measures, pointing out that there is an evident contradiction between the Government’s discourse and the information provided by the State’s own economic authorities.
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Fernández recalled that the Central Bank recently highlighted the resilience of the Dominican economy in the face of international events and assured that the country has shown improvement during the first months of the current year. Likewise, he cited official reports indicating that the Dominican economy recorded a growth of 4.0% between January and April 2026, driven mainly by the construction, free trade zone manufacturing, hotels, bars, and restaurant sectors.
“If the economy is growing and improving, then it is not in crisis, so there will never be valid reasons to impose new taxes on the population,” the opposition leader maintained while analyzing the motivations presented by the authorities to promote the so-called anti-crisis plan.
Fernández considered that the Government has avoided using the term tax reform due to the widespread rejection caused by the proposal presented in October 2024, which ended up being withdrawn in the face of opposition from different sectors of Dominican society.
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In the opinion of the president of the Fuerza del Pueblo, the name change does not alter the essence of the initiative, as it continues to pursue the same objective of increasing the State’s tax revenue through new burdens for citizens, companies, and productive sectors.
He recalled that the tax reform withdrawn in 2024 included measures that directly impacted individuals, companies, the film industry, vehicle owners, the consumption of alcoholic beverages, the Tax on the Transfer of Industrialized Goods and Services (ITBIS), the Real Estate Property Tax, and the price of numerous mass-consumption products.
The opposition leader stated that the true cause of the fiscal difficulties facing the Modern Revolutionary Party government does not lie in a lack of revenue, but in the accelerated and sustained increase in public spending over the last few years.
In that sense, he pointed out that between 2020 and 2026 the current administration has managed resources of approximately 8.6 trillion pesos, while public spending increased by 87.5%, an expansion that, as he indicated, far exceeds the behavior of accumulated inflation in that same period.
He explained that a large part of that increase is concentrated in current transfers, subsidies, remuneration, contracting of services, and public debt interest, items that absorb an increasing proportion of the State’s resources.
The former president maintained that currently about 90 out of every 100 pesos executed by the Government are allocated to current expenditure, while barely 10 pesos are directed to capital expenditure, that is, to works, infrastructure, and investments for development. He considered that this distribution reflects a distortion of budgetary priorities, since an increasingly larger proportion of public resources is used to sustain the functioning of the government apparatus and an increasingly smaller part for projects that boost economic growth and improve the population’s quality of life.
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Fernández also questioned the need for new taxes when the Government itself announced weeks ago a containment program aimed at generating savings of nearly 40 billion pesos through the reduction of operating expenses, vehicle acquisition, service contracting, fuel consumption, advertising, and current transfers.
He indicated that if those containment measures are applied effectively, the generated resources would allow for facing any budgetary pressure without the need to resort to new taxes.
Likewise, he pointed out that part of the arguments used to justify the government plan were associated with the impact of the geopolitical situation in the Middle East on international oil prices. However, he observed that the most recent events point towards a reduction in those external pressures and a downward trend in crude oil prices, which would considerably decrease the cost of the subsidies assumed by the State.
Fernández cited international economic reports that account for a significant drop in oil prices following diplomatic breakthroughs aimed at reducing tensions in the Middle East. He indicated that, according to international market reports, crude oil recorded a decline of more than 3% in a single day, reaching its lowest level in more than three months, a situation that considerably reduces the fiscal pressures associated with energy subsidies contemplated in the 2026 General State Budget.
We propose the withdrawal of the project regarding everything related to the tax burden “because today it makes no sense; as lawyers would say, it lacks purpose,” he said, adding that with the reduction in oil prices, the 40 billion pesos that are intended to be collected are no longer necessary. According to budget estimates, only about 889 million pesos would be required and not the 40 billion that are sought to be obtained through new taxes,” he expressed.
According to Fernández, the combination of austerity measures and the reduction of energy subsidies eliminates the reasons the Government has presented for pushing for new tax burdens.
“The problem is not a lack of resources. The problem is the excessive increase in Government spending,” he reiterated.
Fernández maintained that the country needs more efficient management of public resources and not a new tax burden for citizens, especially at a time when official indicators themselves show economic growth and better prospects for the national economy.
