By Gemma Q. Casas
Variety News Staff

FINANCE Secretary Eloy Inos says fiscal year 2006 tax rebate checks will be released late because the cash-strapped government is also trying to meet its other financial obligations.
Inos said his department is still clearing up rebate backlogs from FY 2004.
“We’re still working on cleaning up and by that I mean we’re still paying up (rebates) for 2004 and 2005. We’re still working hard at it,” Inos told Variety in an interview. “Of course, this tells us that unless we find new sources of revenue we’ll probably have to be late again.”
The finance secretary said the annual rebates cost the government up to $27 million.
“Rebates annually run between $25 to $27 million,” he said.
The law entitles taxpayers to rebates ranging from 50 to 90 percent of the taxes they paid depending on their income.
Thousands of taxpayers raced against time to meet the April 17 deadline in filing their FY 2006 tax returns.
As of mid-2006 the Department of Finance still owed taxpayers up to $9 million worth of FY 2005 rebates.
A trust fund for rebates is supposed to be maintained by the administration to ensure that taxpayers are refunded their tax credits not later than six months after filing their income tax returns every fiscal year.
“The rebate shall be made as soon as practicable but no later than 6 months from the due date of the return or the date of the filing, whichever is later,” a portion of the CNMI tax law stated.
A rebate trust fund is also supposed to be maintained by the government.
However, this trust fund has been depleted years ago.
According to the previous administration, the $20 million rebate trust account was already depleted by its predecessors.
Inos said if the tourism industry becomes more stable, there could be more revenues collected.
“We’re working hard to identify new resources. Hopefully, we can bring in our tourism industry back on track,” he said.
“Hopefully through that effort we can be able to improve our economy and through economic growth we can probably generate more revenues,” he added. “So hopefully (the release of FY 2006 rebates) won’t be late as we’ve seen in previous years.