QCOSTARICA – The current administration continues looking for ways to fill its cash strapped coffers. The latest proposal: ATM transactions.
Legislator and former presidential candidate for the Movimiento Libertario party, Otto Guevara, says the government is planning to tax every automated teller (ATM) transaction over ¢100.000 colones (US$190).
The legislator says that law No. 19.959, called Ley para el Desarrollo Regional de Costa Rica (Regional Development Act of Costa Rica), will create a regional development fund. But how will be it financed?
Article 39 fo the bill, according to Guevara, would establish a 0.02% tax on the total amount of electronic transactions over ¢100.000 moved through the Sistema Nacional de Pagos Electrónicos (Simpe) – the national electronic payments system, that includes ATMs.
“This project will impoverish more Costa Ricans. Another consequence of this proposal of the Executive is the ‘desbancarización’ (unbanking?) of many people…Libertarians will always be against more taxes,” said Guevara.
The legislator explained that many, to avoid paying the tax will use cash instead without resorting to the financial system. “They may even keep their home at home,” said Guevara.
The government’s proposal also calls for an annual review of the tax, based on the annual inflation.
Source: ElMundo.cr
Central American Date, the online financial
reporter, just called the country an ineptocracy, meaning a place run by the
inept. The Urban Dictionary describes the term as “a system of government
where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing,
and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed,
are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers”
Bingo!
I don’t think a person should have to pay tax to get their money out of a bank. That is just wrong. We have already paid tax on the money before we put it in the bank. I won’t be using your ATM here if you do that. So you won’t be getting nothing from me. But double taxing your own people here is wrong.