By Nick Brown
SAN JUAN, April 13 (Reuters) - Puerto Rico's general fund revenues for March rose from the same month a year ago, largely due to tax hikes, but were still slightly below estimates, the U.S. territory's treasury secretary said on Wednesday.
General fund revenues of $929.7 million were $5.3 million below estimates, according to a statement from Treasury Secretary Juan Zaragoza Gomez, but $91.1 million above March 2015 revenues. One reason for the increase is Puerto Rico's sales tax, which generated $91.4 million more in March 2016 than a year ago, according to the statement.
The sales tax increased to 10.5 percent from 6 percent late last year. The island also imposed a new, 4 percent tax on business-to-business transactions and certain professional services.
Zaragoza added that the island has done a better job collecting delinquent taxes, by placing embargoes on businesses with tax debts. "We are changing tax payer behavior, we are sending out the message that failure to pay has consequences," Zaragoza said.
The struggling island is in a fiscal crisis, with $70 billion in debt that Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla has said it cannot pay, and a 45 percent poverty rate. It faces a possible shut-down of its economy absent either a debt restructuring agreement with creditors, or federal legislation to resolve its crisis.
Default could strike as soon as May, when the territory's primary fiscal agent, the Government Development Bank, is scheduled to make a payment of $422 million that Garcia Padilla has said it cannot pay. Puerto Rico debt issuers owe another $1.55 billion in payments due on July 1.
(Reporting by Nick Brown; Editing by Diane Craft)