Emphasizing that the tax reform driven by Governor Jenniffer González must be approved in the current legislative session, Treasury Secretary Ángel Pantoja Rodríguez said Thursday that the next step in that direction is to discuss “different scenarios” with the Senate and House leadership, and said that individuals will benefit the most from the bill.

“That is the intention. We have been discussing different scenarios with the governor. It seems to me that what we need now is a conversation with the legislative leadership, so that, once the legislative process is presented, it will be as light as possible, considering that we are close to the end of the session. But, I understand that this conversation should take place in the next few days. Yes, we have been in direct conversation with the governor about different scenarios to be presented,” said Pantoja Rodriguez, in response to questions from El Nuevo Día, during the bi-weekly press conference at La Fortaleza.

Questioned about the content of the proposed reform, he argued that, true to the campaign promise of the New Progressive Party, it seeks to provide relief to individuals.

“Certainly, it is very specific in terms of the objectives of the government program, which is to reduce the tax burden on taxpayers, in this case, particularly in the case of individuals. (...) The tax rates and scales for individuals have not been revised for more than a decade, and that is something that the Tax Reform Committee (created by the governor) has been very focused on simulating different scenarios to see how to grant taxpayers that tax relief," he said.

Regarding the participation, if any, of the Fiscal Oversight Board (FOMB) in this process, Pantoja Rodríguez commented that they have “exchanged impressions” on the models discussed.

“They (FOMB) have presented their comments and input regarding Puerto Rico’s tax system, but, at the end of the day, the determination rests with the governor and the conversations with the legislative leadership,” he added.

As of mid-September, the governor had submitted 14 measures for consideration by the Legislature, in anticipation of her promised tax reform, which was left pending in the last session. Seven of the measures are already law.

On the other hand, the executive director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Orlando Berríos Rivera, announced that, since the budget for this fiscal year was approved -which began on July 1-, 25 reprogrammings have been made, “for a total of $180.4 million, and around $356 million have been transferred to 20 government entities to attend to different initiatives of the government program”.

“It is a normal process that occurs in any budget of any country. Budget planning begins about eight months before starting a budget, and we have a challenge in that the Board is already telling me where and in what item that budget is going to be allocated and the initial target of that budget,” he said.

“These reprogrammings what they tell us is that, from the beginning, where the Board is telling us where we are going to spend, well, it does not meet the real need when the execution of the budget of this agency begins,” he added.

Berríos Rivera pointed out that the Department of Education is one of the agencies that has required the most budget reprogramming.

“We’re talking about the Department of Education, which is $136 million for the community schools program, comprehensive services programs for people with disabilities and partial hiring of employees. The Treasury Department requested a reprogramming to recognize about $14.6 million from rum excise revenues, and transfer to the Department of Economic Development (and Commerce) with Incentives Code revenues. In the Police Department, a reprogramming of $5 million was made for the purchase of equipment and maintenance of the vehicle fleet," he noted.

He also shared that he had to reschedule “such insignificant amounts, such as $2,000 and $16,000, which also require that they go before the Board”.

Along these lines, he revealed that they are requesting the JSF to allow them to make reprogramming without its endorsement, in the case of small amounts.

“This entails a totally excessive bureaucracy, so we hope that the controls we have implemented from OMB, where we have visibility of budget utilization, the Board will agree that these reprogrammings will only be evaluated by OMB and we will notify them,” Berríos Rivera said.

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This content was translated from Spanish to English using artificial intelligence and was reviewed by an editor before being published.