Raissa Calderón Mauras-Ricci 

of the Daily Sun Staff

With no winners announced since June and the July 5  drawing resulting in all winners from JCPenney's is evidence for the allegations made by Rep. Luis Vega Ramos on Friday that the IVU (Sales Tax) Lottery and the tax itself “is a failure.” 

 The Popular Democratic Party representative said he reached this conclusion based on statistics offered Thursday by Treasury Secretary Jesús Méndez with regards to the amount of businesses not filling their sales taxes. 

The tax was established by the Legislature in 2006.

“The very same tabulations that the Treasury Secretary offered confirm that this tax has not been an effective tool to generate the revenues originally estimated,” said Vega Ramos, who called it “too prone to systematic evasion.” 

Vega Ramos, who also represents the House Finance Committee, noted that Méndez himself declared that 9,000 of the 18,000 businesses connected to the IVU LOTO system are evading their responsibility in whole or in part. 

“If the CPA Association data confirms that commercial avoidance of the sales tax is 50 percent, we should conclude the obvious: that the IVU did not work and  a  different mechanism should be implemented for the government to obtain these resources,” insisted the legislator. Vega Ramos said annual revenue losses from the IVU paid by the people but not sent to the Treasury is estimated at $800 million annually.

 Vega Ramos said award-redemption statistics show that the IVU Lottery program has not engaged citizens, which is necessary for the IVU LOTO' s operation. “If people do not pay attention to receiving their IVU LOTO receipts  and then the draw, the indirect supervision of businesses does not happen,” said the PPD legislator. 

 Méndez was emphatic about the agency's controls  to ensure the success of the IVU Loto, including the IVU Hotline , which allows people to report situations related to the IVU and IVU LOTO. “A total of 2,740 confidences have been received so far, which have resulted in the levying of over $5 million in fines since December 2010.” 

Already 18,022 stores all over Puerto Rico are participating in the IVU LOTO audit program. In August, about 75 million transactions were reported, resulting in $2 billion in revenues. To date, 30 people have claimed their tax lottery prize, said Méndez. “Mass deployment for the program started in May with 851 stores installed. In less than five months, we have achieved exponential growth and at the end of December this year we will have included in the program more than 50,000 businesses.”

 Méndez presented the new website features for this program, stressing that consumers can now check their bills online and the list of businesses by town participating in the IVU LOTO. However, in a  street interview with an anonymous IVU LOTO user, the woman explained that she had used the online feature that registers the IVU LOTO numbers and sends the user an email confirmation if any of the tickets have won prizes. “I did it fairly quickly with all my receipts and registered them; it even told me where the purchase had been made, but I have been waiting for a response  for over two weeks.”   

Treasury has established a distribution center of equipment at its headquarters in Old San Juan from which treasury officials will serve the northeast region.

“The technology behind the IVU LOTO has given us an important tool in our enforcement efforts,” said Méndez. “Traders should be aware that we will be analyzing the information and taking action with those taxpayers who do not fulfill their obligation. With this understanding we can be more efficient in how we allocate our resources so revenues reach the Treasury to attend to the country's needs. We thank consumers for their support for the  IVU LOTO and urge them to continue asking for sales receipts in order to ensure the success of this control initiative.”