Everything that I know about it (which ain’t much).
There is a new law that has now quietly come into force in Costa Rica. It is being called the “Luxury House Tax” or a facsimile thereof.
I now have it on good authority that there is mass confusion about this law by the few that have even heard of it. I am one amongst the throng of the confused, but I will here report what I know and will continue to post as I get new information.
There appear to be many that have not heard of the law, but whether a person doesn’t know about the law or simply chooses to do nothing about the law, word is that there will be some rather harsh consequences. How ‘bout them apples?
This is a new tax and it is only for constructed properties – houses, not for raw land. Houses built on both titled and maritime zone property are affected.
House owners must declare the value of their house, and then pay the tax between January 1 and January 15th. The law went into affect October 1, 2009 so the amount in this first time slot will be from October 1, 2009 to January 1, 2010.
If the value of your house is below $170,000 (give or take – this amount will vary depending on the exchange rate), you are exempt.
I have included a table of the current tax-to-value table. At the writing the colon is hovering right around 580 per dollar but you can take the figures below and use the conversion thing by clicking here.
| Colon Value From | Colon Value To | Tax |
|---|---|---|
| From 1 | to 100,000,000 | 0.0% |
| From 100,000,000 | to 250,000,000 | 0.25% |
| From 250,000,000 | to 500,000,000 | 0.30% |
| From 500,000,000 | to 750,000,000 | 0.35% |
| From 750,000,000 | to 1,000,000,000 | 0.40% |
| From 1,000,000,000 | to 1,250,000,000 | 0.45% |
| From 1,250,000,000 | to 1,500,000,000 | 0.50% |
| From 1,500,000,000 | to 1,750,000,000 | 0.55% |
There is an example pdf form on the Costa Rica government’s web site. If you’d like to see it for who knows what reason: click here. It’ll open in a new window and load a pdf document that is an example of what the final version will look like shortly.
