Following an awareness campaign through the media, a brigade composed of officers of the Town Hall of the National Police of Haiti (PNH), the Directorate General of Taxes (DGI) and the Government Commissioner recently conducted in the town of Saint-Marc, a forced recovery of taxes, an operation that falls within the framework of strengthening the authority of the State.

This brigade paid a visit to a dozen of taxpayers offenders identified by the Director of the Town Hall in accordance with the DGI. Order has been given to such taxpayers (owners of gambling, gasoline stations, luxurious apartment among others) to appear within three days at the Town Hall in order to proceed with the estimation of their debt to pay to the DGI. The authorities were very firm.

This "punch" operation comes at a time when revenues of the Town Hall are at its lowest and it only survives thanks to a monthly subsidy of about 600,000 gourdes per month. According to Jean Rony Eugene, the Mayor of the town, about 50,000 gourdes have thus been collected through this operation.

The Mayor of Saint-Marc explained that on the 21,000 taxpayers identified in the town, less than 1,000 were fulfilling their rental tax, noting that some had not paid their taxes for over 10 years !

Following this operation, local officials of Saint Marc, have promised to repeat this type of operation on a regular basis.

HL/ HaitiLibre