question-answered Do I need to pay taxes when buying a domain name?

[NameCup]

I received an email with the following content:

Dear Customer:

Attached to this email you will find an Electronic Receipt in XML format and its corresponding representation in PDF format, for billing purposes from PONTIFICIA UNIVERSIDAD CATÓLICA MADRE Y MAESTRA. This is based on the specifications of the General Directorate of Internal Taxes.

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The attachment contains a document for paying $2000 in taxes. Is this real? Have you received it?
I'm not sure which website sent this.

 

[jberryhill]

I'm not sure which website sent this.

You received a payment receipt which claims to be from a Catholic university in the Dominican Republic, but you don't know where the bill came from, and you are asking whether you need to pay $2000 in taxes for buying a domain name?

Can you explain your situation in a little more detail?

Let's start with some simple questions...

1. Have you ever heard of "PONTIFICIA UNIVERSIDAD CATÓLICA MADRE Y MAESTRA"?

2. What is it that makes you believe this has something to do with a domain name?

3. In what country do you live?

Personally, I would be inclined to think that the tax authority in the Dominican Republic would communicate in Spanish, for starters, but your question doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

As a general rule, if you receive an email from someone you don't know, then opening the attachment(s) to it is probably not a good idea.

 

[NameCup]

@jberryhill

1. I have never heard of PONTIFICIA UNIVERSIDAD CATÓLICA MADRE Y MAESTRA
2. I did buy three domain names of Dominicana last week from the nic.do website. The price of the domain name was only 33 US dollars, and there was no reminder that I needed to pay taxes
3. The original email was indeed in Spanish, but I couldn't understand it, so I used a translation tool to translate it into English
4. I misread it. It was not a tax of 2,000 US dollars, but a tax of 2,000 DOP, which is equivalent to 33 US dollars
5. Finally, has anyone bought a domain name from the nic. do website? Has anyone been asked to pay back taxes?

Estimado Cliente: ***
Adjunto a este correo encontrará un Comprobante Electrónico en formato XML y su correspondiente representación en formato PDF, por concepto de facturación de PONTIFICIA UNIVERSIDAD CATÓLICA MADRE Y MAESTRA. Lo anterior con base en las especificaciones de la Dirección General de Impuestos internos.
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[NameCup]

Sorry, I may be mistaken, it's just a bill, not a tax.

 

[jberryhill]

The price of the domain name was only 33 US dollars...

...so I used a translation tool...

...but a tax of 2,000 DOP, which is equivalent to 33 US dollars

The final piece of the puzzle is that the .do ccTLD manager is....

https://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/do.html

Delegation Record for .DO

(Country-code top-level domain)
ccTLD Manager
Pontificia Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra
Recinto Santo Tomas de Aquino
Ave. Abraham Lincoln Esq. Romulo Betancourt
Santo Domingo 2748
Dominican Republic (the)

So, what you seem to have is a receipt for the payment you already made, and your translation tool, coupled with whatever they are calling a domain name registration fee, is calling it a "tax". It would be marginally interesting to see the original language version. "Impuesto" can be used in various contexts where it is a "tax", "levy", "toll" or the direct English equivalent "impost", which is any kind of regulated payment requirement. Dealing with various non-US attorneys in the field of trademark registration, they will often refer to the government filing fees as a "tax", which they take to mean any kind of payment made to a regulatory authority - in this instance the .do registry.

 

[davidkoperty]

thank you for info !