General fund revenue collections top $8.1B in fiscal ’11, companies account for 10% of total
Treasury Secretary Jesús Méndez (Credit: © Mauricio Pascual)
Foreign and non-resident companies doing business in Puerto Rico accounted for 10 percent of fiscal 2011’s General Fund collections, which reached more than $8.1 billion, preliminary results offered Wednesday show.
As a result of the special excise tax imposed on corporations through Law 154 and taxes retained from non-resident companies, including municipal business taxes, companies paid a combined $847.8 million, according to data that Treasury Secretary Jesús Méndez presented during a news conference at the agency’s Puerta de Tierra headquarters.
While Law 154 generated $677.8 million since it was put in place in January, taxes on non-resident firms added another $170 million to the public coffers.
Those line items, coupled with the implementation of the Tax Reform, the various controls the agency has put in place and indicators showing an increase in consumer spending are credited for fueling this year’s General Fund collections, Méndez noted.
The $8.1 billion, he said, is $31.7 million above what the administration originally estimated it would collect, and marks the third consecutive year the government exceeds its goals, he said.
“The Tax Reform is having the desired effect, leaving more money in the pockets of taxpayers stimulates the economy and increasing revenue as a result,” he said
For fiscal 2011, individual taxpayers paid $437 million less in taxes, or 28 percent less than what was paid in 2010 as a result of the Tax Reform relief, he said. Sales and Use Tax (known as IVU in Spanish) revenue increased by 3.2 percent, when compared to the previous fiscal year, he said.
