title: COFINA
text: # COFINA
  
  The Puerto Rico Urgent Interest Fund Corporation (also known as the Puerto Rico Sales Tax Financing Corporation) —Spanish: Corporación del Fondo de Interés Apremiante (COFINA)— is a government-owned corporation of Puerto Rico that issues government bonds and uses other financing mechanisms to pay and refinance the public debt of Puerto Rico. The Corporation is a subsidiary of the Government Development Bank and was created by Law No. 291 of 2006. Bonds issued by COFINA are called Puerto Rico Sales Tax Revenue Bonds.
  
  ## Background
  
  The Corporation receives half of the state government portion of the Puerto Rico Sales and Use Tax (SUT) (2.75%, or half of the out of the state government’s portion of 6%) and is authorized to use such portion pay or finance, in whole or in part, or fund:
  
  * certain debt obligations of the government of Puerto Rico payable solely from government budgetary appropriations and outstanding as of June 30, 2006;
  * the debt of the Department of Treasury with the Government Development Bank; and
  * others
  
  As of May 2011, COFINA had issued over $14.4 billion in bonds pursuant to its Enabling Act, as amended, of which $13.4 billion were outstanding. As an independent corporation, COFINA has the same powers, rights and faculties as the Puerto Rico Government Development Bank under its Constitutional Charter.
  
  