In This Issue: Highway Progress, and Luxury Tax
Here we are in a new year and a new decade and as usual a lot is happening down this way. For those following the luxury home tax issue I’ll include an up-date as I know it. Now, to what is going on in this area then nationally.
Hola y Aloha Everyone,
MATAPALO. Not much going on in our little pueblo. Some tourists are starting to show up now that the dry season is upon us. Charlie from the Jungle House and Greg Anderson from Finca Zacaton have teamed up to renovate the El Coquito. The place is starting to look really good with new paint, renovated rooms, a professional cook and other changes. Of course, work on the Costenera Sur continues. WOW, has it really changed the way we live and do things. Jaco with Automercado (the U.S. style supermarket) is now just over an hour away. Jaco is actually a much easier drive than to San Isidro.
COSTANERA SUR. Thefinal layer of asphalt has been layed all the way from Quepos to Hatillo with the road being completely striped. AND…in addition to the striping yellow reflectors have been embedded along the center lane with red reflectors embedded along the sides of each lane. These reflectors stretch all the way from Hatillo to where the Costanera intersects with the Caldera Highway. Recently, they’ve started painting speed limits on the pavement along with turn arrows for turn offs. It is really a first class road.
Work continues on the last stretch from Hatillo on down to Dominical. As of 10 days ago approximately five kilometers have been paved from Hatillo on south. Work continues in cutting out the road way from where the paving stops on to the gasolinera. From the gasolinera on down to Dominical there is still a lot of work to be done in cutting the road way out.
CALDERA HIGHWAY. This road from the Port of Caldera to the central valley is scheduled to open either during February or the 1st part of March which is ahead of the original projected completion date. Once opened the trip from Matapalo to the central valley will be cut to about 3 ½ hours with NO narrow, mountain roads to negotiate.
LUXURY HOME TAX. This continues to mystify, confuse and consternate people. The original declaration and payment date was 31 December but because for most of December the government is shut down the Hacienda postponed the initial filing date to 15 January. At last report only 166 people have paid this tax. The Hacienda says NO MORE EXTENSIONS. Trying to access the Hacienda’s website for information is virtually impossible particularly if you only have dial-up access and if you do get on unless you are fluent in Spanish and have an engineering degree you will not understand anything. The Hacienda finally dropped the requirement that you could only access their website if you were a Costa Rican citizen.
Neither having an adequate internet access nor being fluent in Spanish or being engineers we had the law firm we have always dealt with, Facio y Canas, send down a government certified civil engineer to survey our home and property. After spending over two hours measuring rooms, height of ceilings, thickness of walls, width of walk ways, height and thickness of retaining walls, etc., etc., etc.. they finally finished. The end result which we have the formal report of is that we are well below the established 100 million Colones mark. At his request I sent Chris Cobb (Hills of Portolon) who has some decent internet access and had accessed the Hacienda’s computation program the measurements the engineers came up with. When he ran those figures through the Hacienda’s programs the results were ballpark for what the engineers determined our home to be valued at.
DRUGS. The Minister of Public Security recently stated that 2009 heralded a change in Costa Rica’s status in drug trafficking. Costa Rica is no longer just a transient way-point for drugs passing through on the way to the Mexican cartels. The country is now considered a “Hub” where drugs are moved in from Colombia and stock piled and stored waiting for the Mexican cartels to pick them up and move them further north. Relatedly, the OIJ and drug enforcement police report a 63% increase during 2009 in drugs being smuggled out of country by individuals through Juan Santa Maria International Airport in San Jose. These are small quantities (1 to 2 kilos) either strapped to the individuals body, poured into condoms and swallowed or inserted into some body cavity.
OF EARTHQUAKES AND VOLCANOS. Costa Rica has always been known as one of the most seismic active areas of the world because of its active volcanoes and the major fault that lies just off shore. According to the Observatorio Volcanologico y Sismologico de Costa Rica during 2009 there were 6,000 recorded earth quakes and tremors. Recently, Volcans Turrialba, Poas and Irazu have become more active spewing plumes of smoke and ash several hundreds of feet into the air. These three follow the eastern ridge line that runs down the central valley. The government has declared several areas as mandatory evacuation areas because of the falling ash and danger of a major eruption.
NEW MONEY. This year will see the introduction of the 30,000 and 50,000 Colone bill as the 10,000 Colone bill is no longer sufficient due to the increase in prices of everything. Costa Rica is following many other nations in issuing bills in separate sizes with the size of the bill increasing with the denomination. The last I read the new bills will not be paper but plastic like many other countries are now using.
RAIN. The rainy season was a dry one. We measured 44.2 inches less rain during the 2009 rainy season than we measured for 2008. Over all we only had 171.2 inches for the entire year. Presently, rivers are way down with most streams only trickles. You can almost step across the water flow at the Portolon and the water is so low in the Naranjo you could easily drive through the river like we’ve had to do many times in the past. Last night we had .2 inches of rain, the first measurable rain fall we’ve had for the past 13 days.
COST OF LIVING
Fuel. This is an only in Costa Rica story. In December ARESP (Authoridad Reguladora de Servicios Publicos), the state price regulating agency, approved the monthly price increase requested by RECOPE (Refinadora Costarricenses de Petroleo), the state refinery. Someone filed a protest with Sala IV (the Constitutional Court) stating that with the long holidays there was no way to file a complaint about the increase. Sala IV upheld this…so… no fuel increase this month. Prices will remain as I listed in last month’s newsletter…HOWEVER, ARESP has stated that RECOPE can add this month’s increase in with next months requested fuel price increase which was requested by RECOPE and which has already been approved by ARESP. Scratching your head…well, come on down to our property and join the white faced monkeys sitting in our trees who are doing the same thing.
Other Areas. The 1st of the year saw price increases in many areas. Postage increased any where from 50% to 100% depending on what you are mailing and to where it is going. The cost of public transportation (bus, taxi, train) also saw increases. ICE announced that it’s recently offered 3G phone service will go from US$6.00 per month to US$24.00 still with only basic phone service being provided. The promised internet access, etc., etc. is yet to come.
Exchange Rate. Today’s exchange rate at Banco de Costa Rica is 572 Colones to the US$.
TRIVIA. This is for those of you with an intellectual vein. If you miss reading your daily comics go to www.arcamax.com and click on Garfield’s image. It will take you to 26 of the most syndicated daily comics. You can also read biographies of those who do these comics. Extremely interesting!!!!!! in a lot of cases.
So much for this news letter. Every body stay healthy and happy and for those of you stateside – try and stay warm. It’s a balmy 80 degrees with a slight drizzle coming down here.
Frank and Karen Walker
Lot 12, Finca Zacatona, Matapalo
011-506-8887-1933
