P.R. Laws tit. 13, § 286
All actions, remedies or proceedings to be substantiated before the Court of First Instance shall be instituted by complaint of the claimant person or entity, formulated by the claimant or through a duly authorized legal representative, within the term of thirty (30) days following the day of notice thereof, served by the Secretary of the Treasury of Puerto Rico, in any of the following cases: (1) taxes on real or personal property; (2) inheritance or gift taxes; (3) income taxes; (4) unfair profiteering taxes; (5) social insurance taxes; (6) denials of reimbursements authorized by law of any kind of taxes paid unduly or in excess, or unlawfully collected for any other reason; Provided, however, That the filing of the complaint in the Court of First Instance shall not affect or impair the right of the Secretary of the Treasury of Puerto Rico to collect the taxes by the procedure authorized by law, unless the Court of First Instance, upon motion of the taxpayer and after summoning the Secretary of the Treasury of Puerto Rico, stays the collection of the tax at issue, upon the bonding, to its entire satisfaction, of the tax in controversy, including interest and penalties. The authorization to file this bond, as well as the fixing of the amount thereof, shall be a discretional and exclusive faculty of the court, having in mind in each case the facts and circumstances in its judgment concurring and affecting the interest both of the taxpayer and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
Each complaint shall contain a brief and clear exposition of all the facts on which the claimant bases his action, and the court may require him to set forth also his grounds at law before or after the Secretary of the Treasury files his answer, which shall also contain, briefly and clearly, a statement of all the allegations of fact and of law on which the said official bases his opposition to what the taxpayer wants.
On filing the complaint the taxpayer shall deliver to the Secretary of the Court of First Instance three copies of the complaint for official service on the Secretary of the Treasury. The Secretary shall serve notice on the Secretary of the Treasury by delivering to said official, or, in the proper case, to the person substituting for him as such, the three copies of the complaint. On the back of one of said copies there shall be set forth, in a note signed by the server, the date of the service. A written record of such service, written and signed by the server, shall be delivered by the latter immediately to the Secretary, who shall join the same to the record of the case.
The Secretary of the Treasury shall file his answer or allegation within the thirty (30) days immediately following the service of the complaint, or within such extension of the term granted at his request by the court for the purpose, and he shall in all cases appear before the court represented by the Secretary of Justice of Puerto Rico or by a delegate thereof; a copy of his answer or allegation shall be served directly by the legal representative of the Secretary of the Treasury on the taxpayer, if the latter should not have the assistance of a legal representative in the proceedings, or on his legal representative, if he should have one, or it may be served by the Secretary in like manner, if it appears not to have been done before as above provided, for which the legal representative of the Secretary of the Treasury shall furnish the necessary copy, such service always being attested by the express record thereof in the record of the case.
After the answer is filed, the case shall be set for hearing according to a permanent docket of the court where cases shall be included in the chronological order in which the issue has been established in each, or in any other manner, as the court may provide in such cases which in its judgment may so require.
History —May 13, 1949, No. 328, p. 996, § 3.