A week before it ran out, the government extended the window for the tax regularisation under Law No. 1733. Supreme Decree No. 5708, issued by the Council of Ministers on 16 September, extends to 31 December 2026 the 120 days the law granted in May, which according to the Servicio de Impuestos Nacionales (SIN) expired on 23 September. It is a two-article decree that adds and removes nothing. What it does is move a date and, in doing so, use up the room the law gave the Executive.
That room was written into the statute. The third paragraph of paragraph I of Article 3 of Law No. 1733 authorised the Executive to extend the deadline “until 31 December 2026”. The decree uses that authorisation in full, so 31 December is now a statutory limit rather than an administrative one. A further extension would require an Act of the Assembly. Anyone weighing whether to wait has the answer there.
What the law offers and what the decree keeps
The decree rests on the central level’s exclusive competence over fiscal policy under Article 298.II.23 of the Constitution and reaches taxpayers of the SIN and of the Aduana Nacional “under the conditions established in the said Law”. Those conditions, which the decree itself restates in its recitals, are May’s. The regularisation covers debts for fiscal periods from 2018 to 2025. It may be completed in cash by paying the omitted tax updated with only 50% of the value-maintenance adjustment, with the remainder of that adjustment, interest and penalties for tax or customs fraud, non-payment contraventions and breaches of formal duties forgiven. Alternatively, taxpayers may use payment facilities of up to 36 monthly instalments, with the tax updated to the law’s publication date and the same forgiveness of interest and penalties.
The decree matters for the date it sets and for the one it rules out: after December, the debt returns to its normal regime.
None of that changes. The periods covered are not widened, the percentages and number of instalments are untouched, and the decree does not affect the automatic forgiveness of pre-2018 debts, which the SIN has been processing of its own motion since June under RND 102600000019. Nor does it revive payments already made; the law expressly closed the refund action, so anyone who paid interest or penalties before May does not recover them by waiting until December. The decree is, strictly, an extension of validity and nothing more.
The sequence that gives it meaning
Read alone, Supreme Decree No. 5708 is a concession to “requests from social and business organisations”, as the SIN put it when announcing it. Read together with the two rules that preceded it within a month, it sketches a policy. On 1 September, RND 102600000033 restored to 60 months the maximum term of ordinary payment facilities under the Tax Code. On 10 September, the government published the memorandum with the IMF that promises a domestic revenue mobilisation strategy by March 2027 and provides that every new fiscal relief measure come with an assessment of its cost and offsetting measures. The decree fits that picture without contradicting it, because it creates no new relief but prolongs one the law had already budgeted and authorised. A cash-strapped Treasury prefers to collect the tax now, even stripped of its accessories, to litigating the full debt for years.
Two open routes, and a choice
Until 31 December, two routes coexist for the same debt to the SIN, and they are not interchangeable. The Law No. 1733 route forgives interest and penalties and allows up to 36 instalments, but only for 2018 to 2025 periods and only while the extended window lasts. The ordinary route under Article 55 of the Tax Code, regulated by RND 102500000019, now allows up to 60 instalments, with a 5% initial payment and guarantee, for any debt, but with no forgiveness at all. For a 2018 to 2025 debt, the comparison usually favours Law No. 1733 even though the monthly instalment is higher, because what is paid is the tax rather than the debt with its accessories. For 2026 debts, or for anyone who needs the longer term above all else, the ordinary route is the only one available.
The law also admits taxpayers with assessment proceedings under way, pending challenges and payment facilities in force, according to the list in its Article 3. In those cases, the calculation includes what is given up by withdrawing. One calendar detail is worth noting: the SIN set the original expiry at 23 September, while several professional sources placed it on the 24th. With the decree the argument loses its point, but it is a reminder that “120 calendar days of validity” admitted more than one count, and that 31 December, unlike that date, admits none.
What to do
- Take stock of debts to the SIN and Customs by period, separating 2018 to 2025 from the rest, and check in Mi Situación Tributaria what remains outstanding and what was forgiven by the authority of its own motion.
- For 2018 to 2025 debts, price both Law No. 1733 modalities—cash with half the value-maintenance adjustment, or up to 36 instalments—against the ordinary 60-month facility, and decide on total cost rather than instalment size.
- Anyone with an assessment, challenge or facility in progress should assess with counsel whether to opt into the law and what withdrawal means for amounts already paid.
- Do not count on a further extension after 31 December; the Executive has exhausted the law’s authorisation and only the Assembly could extend it.
The decree matters for the date it sets and for the one it rules out. It gives three more months to those who did not make it in time and makes clear that after December the debt returns to its normal regime, with the interest and penalties the law forgives today.
