A bill that is being discussed in the Legislative Assembly proposes establishing a tax of 5% on the net sale price of imported or locally produced cement.
The bill establishes that “… the tax on cement produced within the national territory or imported, will be of five percent (5%) on the net sale price, both in the case of the national producer at the level of the production plant and for the importer at the level of the dispatch or storage site, excluding the corresponding sales or value-added tax, as well as any other tax”.
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In this regard, Randall Murillo, Executive Director of the Costa Rican Chamber of Construction, opined that “… this legal initiative will place more equitable rules in the cement market.’Fair competition will be supported by the Chamber’.”
In relation to the destination of the funds collected from the tax, a statement by the Legislative Assembly explains that they will be distributed “… between different provinces and cantons of Cartago, Guanacaste, Desamparados, places where this material is produced, while the rest of the country will also benefit, what is collected from production, in any of the other provinces not considered in the previous articles, will be distributed in the form of twenty-five percent (25%) for the canton where production occurs and the remaining seventy and five percent (75%) in equal parts for the cantons of the respective province’.”
