Merchants claim Solid Waste Law harms the national economy

The National Council of Commerce in Provisions (CNCP) once again calls on the President of the Republic, Luis Abinader, to reflect on the Solid Waste Law, after considering that it harms national development.

Jorge Jerez Espinal, chairman of the board, stated that the implementation of the Solid Waste Law, rather than benefits, will bring chaos and a greater degree of informality, in addition to only benefiting a minority.

“The new Solid Waste Law has been disproportionately promoted by power groups and politicians interested in creating more problems than solutions for the country, since this prerogative, although very necessary, is disproportionate and harmful to commerce and MSMEs, one of the fundamental bases of the country’s development,” Jerez said.

The merchants highlighted the main problems of said law that violate fundamental principles and break all balance, as is the case of the contributory rate or fixed mandatory payments, which affect small and medium-sized enterprises for income without counting the other tax burdens, creating a double contribution.

“ The mandatory contributory scale is very disproportionate, as in its article 5, said law establishes that THEY MUST NECESSARILY BE REVIEWED AND ADJUSTED TO A PERCENTAGE LEVEL OF INCOME AND NOT ON A FIXED RATE. Said rate should be 0.02% on the income of companies, which would help the tax burden NOT be disproportionate between large and small businesses. ”, expressed the union leader.

Likewise, Jerez indicated that Law 98-25 does NOT establish a classification of companies by degree or capacity of pollution, which means that all are measured by the same degree, when it should be that the more it pollutes, the more it pays.

Another problem is with article 164, where it is evident that small businesses such as grocery stores, restaurants, and cafeterias would have a high risk of immediate sanctions, which could create chaos in the application of the law, leading to imminent closures without considering flexibility.

Faced with these situations, the National Council of Commerce in Provisions proposes to modify the Law with urgency, so the government must instruct the Ministry of Environment and the Senate of the Republic to open a debate with the commerce sector and MSMEs, to analyze the effects and reasonable modifications that would be necessary.

In addition to the modification to the Solid Waste Law, the CNCP affirmed that IT STRONGLY OPPOSES any type of struggle that alters the social peace of the country, including the desperate call to strike or strike, as they consider that dialogue and proposals based on rights are the ideal way to achieve concrete objectives.