Rico’s TICO BULL – The current government, as its three predecessors, is intent on introducing sweeping tax reforms that include the introduction of a Value Added Tax (VAT) or Impuesto al Valor Agregado (IVA) in Spanish, that proposes to tax many items not taxed under the simple Impuesto de Ventas (IV) or Sales Tax currently applied to consumer purchases.
One of the items that would be taxed IF and when the IVA is approved and goes into effect is Netflix.
That is, for the current monthly Netflix of $10.99 (¢6,300 colones), the cost would be US$12.41 with the 13% tax, if payment is processed in Costa Rica.
To collect the tax, the law would require issuers of credit and debit cards to collect the tax when processing the payment.
But what of payments made on cards or other online payments gateways with no connection to Costa Rica payment options such as credit/debit cards issued in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Paypal, Payoneer, Paxum, etc.?
That is, the tax on your Netflix or digital services such as hosting for websites, domain registration, antivirus, etc, would only apply if you made payment using a credit/debit card issued in Costa Rica.
Hopefully, the short arm of the Tico tax man won’t reach far enough to tax us foreigners who call Costa Rica home, outside the borders.
Again, not charged on a Costa Rica card means no IVA.
Maybe. In Costa Rica, everything is a maybe. Even maybe itself.
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