Costa Rica News – For all of you that bought a luxury home in Costa Rica to retire abroad, as a vacation home, or as an investment expect a little more money to be coming out of your pocket a we enter 2014.
Costa Rica’s Finance Ministry will begin collecting a tax in called the “luxury home” tax in 2014.
This new tax will apply to homes values at over 120 million colones or about $240,000.
The Finance Ministry expects the income from this tax to be over $8.6 million jut in 2014.
The increase is based on the 2014 appraised values of the properties.
The tax is expected to be charged the first 15 days of January in 2014. The tax rate i progressive and ranges from %0.25 to %0.55.
For all of you that received a legal appraisal of your home that was registered and you asked it to be valued at more than the true value this might come back to bite you in the butt.
The one thing that this might accomplish is bring down some of the over inflated values that some people think their property is worth in Costa Rica and help greatly the real estate market pick up again in Costa Rica.
If you do not pay this tax you are subject to a fine of close to $750 and still have to pay the taxes.