Costa Rica News – As it is with most laws in regards to collecting additional money in Costa Rica, passing them is the easy part for Costa Rica’s legislation…..actual enforcement on the other hand is a different story.
Have you heard of the luxury home tax in Costa Rica? This law has been around for six years, but it’s not being enforced very efficiently. In fact, just 33% of the money expected to be collected actually was.
The Treasury is lacking sufficient data to know from whom to collect this tax. The idea is that those whose homes are worth at least 121 million colones would pay a special tax. There are questions, for instance, does the value of the land count towards that figure?
Because of the difficulty in narrowing down who owes this tax, some may have to pay anytime from now to 2019, if they are found to have avoided the tax. The government collected 3,998 million colones in 2013, though lawmakers thought this tax would bring in around 12,000 million.
Studies are in effect to see the true size of this tax evasion. They are looking into the most effective way to see the value of each property, information that is not readily available in any organized way. One of the main problems is that you cannot enter private homes to get the data needed to appraise their value. The data must come from the amount of loans given for a mortgage.
The money collected is to provide decent housing in a government program geared at helping those with low income. 70% of the money Banhvi receives for the tax burden is from this tax.
