P.R. Laws tit. 21, § 5001
(a) Municipalities are hereby authorized to levy, through municipal ordinances approved to that effect, for Fiscal Year 1992-93 and for each subsequent fiscal year, a basic tax of up to four percent (4%) per annum on the appraised value of all personal property and of up to six percent (6%) per annum on the appraised value of all real property not exempted or exonerated from taxes, located within their territorial limits, which will be in addition to any other tax levied by virtue of other laws in effect. Notwithstanding the foregoing, for fiscal years 2009-10, 2010-11, and 2011-12 or until the revenues established under Section 15 of this Act are raised, the basic tax to be levied by municipalities on real property may not exceed point six percent (0.6%) per annum.
The municipalities are hereby authorized to levy, by ordinance, property tax rates lower than those provided previously when the type of business or industry to which the property is dedicated, or its geographical location, dictates the convenience of doing so for the development of commercial activity or of any rehabilitation and development zone defined or established through a municipal ordinance. This authorization includes the power to promulgate sequential or progressive rates within the maximum or the minimum, as well as to establish lower rates and even to exonerate from payment of property taxes, when it is desired to promote investment in the development and rehabilitation of deteriorated or decaying urban areas of the municipality, all of which is subject to compliance with the conditions and formalities established by the municipality through ordinances, and to the person or business being up to date in the payment of Commonwealth and municipal taxes. The levy of lower rates and/or the exoneration from payment of property taxes shall be uniform for businesses of the same nature within each industrial and commercial sector. Until a municipality adopts new tax rates, the rates corresponding to each municipality shall be the sum of the rates adopted by each municipality pursuant to the provisions of law in effect up to the date of approval of this act, plus one percent (1%) per annum on the appraised value of all personal property in the municipality and three percent (3%) on the appraised value of all real property in the municipality, which is not exempted or exonerated from taxes that had been covered into the Special Fund of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico up to the date of approval of this act.
(b) The Collection Center shall assess and collect said tax in accordance with the same procedures and subject to the same limitations and rights provided by this part for the assessment and collection of property taxes in Puerto Rico.
Likewise, municipalities are hereby empowered in conjunction with the Collection Center to carry out collection actions against any taxpayer for any real and/or personal property taxes, whether through administrative or judicial means. CRIM shall establish through regulations the parameters and processes whereby said actions shall be carried out. In the cases aforementioned, the Collections Center shall not receive the commission of up to five percent (5%) of the total revenues collected provided in Section 22 of Act No. 80[sic] of August 30, 1991, as amended.
(c) The proceeds of the tax levied by this section shall be covered into the Matching Fund for the Municipalities in the manner provided by § 5204 of this title.
History —Aug. 30, 1991, No. 83, § 2.01; Mar. 9, 2009, No. 7, § 54; July 10, 2009, No. 37, § 23; June 16, 2011, No. 94, § 5.