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have i missed something about this? my neighbor is trying to fill out some forms for the canton on her property (not a luxury property). are we supposed to be doing this country-wide? i thought the municipalities either send someone to re-evaluate the property or automatically raise the assessment. my taxes haven’t budged in 5 years. so an increase wouldn’t surprise me.
On our house, we have been here 3 years. taxes were not paid so we went to the municipality in Jaco and paid one year back taxes and current taxes for 2010. We received a ten percent reduction for paying in January.
Today in Inside Costa Rica there is an article that says that property taxes on gringo style homes are going up 40 to 60 per cent. In order for us to figure out our taxes from the original sale the title guy was kind enough to help us with the process that included paperwork. we submitted that in Jan 2012 paid the difference and the one year we were behind, which we did not know, and now we are good to go this January,
Dont know if our taxes will go up again for next year. but hopefully we will at least get the ten percent for paying in january, The rumor I heard is that people typically did not pay property taxes until there was a transfer of ownership and then there is no notification of your tax bill.
It is your responsibility to find out when where and how on almost everything you do with the government here,
i pay my prop taxes every year in january. i guess i will just go to the muni and ask them what they are for this year and see if they tell me i have to do a re-eval. i can’t imagine that i do, but hey, who knows?
[quote=”maravilla”]i pay my prop taxes every year in january. i guess i will just go to the muni and ask them what they are for this year and see if they tell me i have to do a re-eval. i can’t imagine that i do, but hey, who knows?[/quote]
Maravilla
here is a secret!!!
every 5 years they re-eval property taxes and such.
what you do is go to the muni office and request the form so YOU can re eval your property. in this way you let it go up slightly :D:D:D:D
if you dont do this then they send someone who does this and it will be at least 2 to 3 times more
this is what your neigbor was doing
two years ago they were doing the same thing — re-assessing values all over the country but not in my district. just because it happens elsewhere doesn’t mean it happens where i live. i’m going to the muni tomorrow to find out if there have been increases. they are always so helpful there, so i will see what they tell me. i looked at the website and for the life of my couldn’t figure out how you would calculate anything!!!
[quote=”maravilla”]two years ago they were doing the same thing — re-assessing values all over the country but not in my district. just because it happens elsewhere doesn’t mean it happens where i live. i’m going to the muni tomorrow to find out if there have been increases. they are always so helpful there, so i will see what they tell me. i looked at the website and for the life of my couldn’t figure out how you would calculate anything!!![/quote]
I think you are right.
Your taxes seem to depend on what the canton and/or municipalidad are doing. My taxes have increased every year with the municipalidad adding a new tax for parks and public improvement this year.
we got hit with a garbage collection tax, which was imposed about the same time that we had a derrumbe and there was no way the garbage truck could get to the pick up point. we only generate one tiny bag of trash every week and that is mostly other plastic bags, so we took care of our own trash for that entire year. i argued with the muni that i didn’t want to pay the tax because i hadn’t used the service, and lo and behold, they knocked it off my bill — which had nearly doubled my $78 a year normal taxes!! jajaja
i went to the muni, got a form, filled it out with all the info that was on my planos, gave it to the assessor, and he calculated my new taxes. no increase on the value of my house, just the value of the land which went up 300%, so with the added garbage collection tax, it went from $78 a year to $265 a year. i can live with that because it is fixed for the next 5 years.
The new law was established in november 2008.
It is called “Ley de Impuesto Solidario para el Fortalecimiento de Programas de Vivienda”
The term “luxury tax” was probably created by us “Gringos”
It applies to assets worth (valor fiscal) more than 100,000,000 Colones, and not only to “Gringo” style homes. By law, the luxury-home owner has to fill in a new tax declaration every 3 (!!) years. There are a bunch of complicated formulas and methods in order to do a real appraisal, but one probably has to be an appraiser in order to understand them. Therefore the municipalities are providing a list of land values for each area (not taking into consideration certain details, such as paved public road front or horrible gravel private roads etc. They also give you an idea about the current value of an existing building, but they rarely go out to do an appraisal. I would guess, 80 % of all property owners are cheating when it gets to declare the taxes, and/or when they want to sell their homes… Guess in which case the value is much higher ? 8)
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