The Tax Revenue Will Be Spent to Improve Low Income Housing.

Legislators have approved taxes on luxury homes, and the money will supposedly help to eradicate shantytowns. How much money these taxes will generate is still unknown and the current estimates vary greatly. Houses valued at about $200,000 or more will be the targets of the new tax, however taxes on the land on which they are built are excluded in this scheme.

According to the National Registry there are more than 6,492 properties that are registered with a value of $200,000 or more. This project, which will be valid for 10 years, is considered to be a gesture of solidarity and should bring in enough cash to help build decent housing for the poor, thus allowing them to live with more dignity and sanitation. The Ministry of Housing estimated that the sum of $45,000 should be amassed while the Parliament doesn’t expect to see more than about $10,000. There is a large discrepancy there, and as usual one wonders how that can be and how calculations are made. When the poor is to benefit, everything seems to go against them!

While Costa Rica is going through many upgrades, with various luxurious and expensive houses, developments and condos emerging throughout the whole country, the amount and size of shantytowns here seem to be on the rise. The amount of foreigners in the country has lent a hand to the growing prices for reality in neighborhoods like Escazu and Rohrmoser, leaving the original inhabitants unable to keep up with the rising prices.

According to a press release from President Arias, poverty has not experienced a rise and the number of people living under the poverty line is the same this year as it was last year, whereas a survey by the National Survey and Consensus Institute said that the number increased by 95,000 people this year. Either way, both results show that the situation has certainly not improved. With the constant rise in the cost of Living in Costa Rica, those less fortunate find it impossible to earn enough money to get out of their desperate situation and are forced to live in appalling conditions, sharing unhygienic hand made shacks with no running water or sanitary installations.

Side by side they share land with millionaires, sometimes one only has to cross the road to go from a dive to a mansion. This in turns produces feelings of resentment, jealousy and anger, something that can be fully understood, and crime is on the rise with culprits who see their victims as the enemy. This is not the way to a healthy successful country.

These taxes could be a start and maybe, finally in ten years from now the shantytowns will disappear in Costa Rica, and everyone will have the possibility to live decently and have a better chance to get on with their lives. It is not easy for children to grow healthily, physically as well as mentally, and even less, to study in such desperate conditions where shortages of light and food are not uncommon. It seems that lately in Costa Rica, the rich have gotten richer and the poor have gone poorer, thus going back to a third world country status, rather than being the developing country it claims to be.

Many investors are projecting the wrong idea, indeed it is not all rosy and pink here, and the recent rise in crime is just but one result, the cause and effect factor we never seem to grasp. Let’s hope indeed that this money does go where it is supposed to be, and we should see some important and positive changes, for a better, safer and happier Costa Rica.

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Filed under: Costa Rica News on October 31st, 2008