Agricultural Tax Exoneration

This post might be a curiosity to most but of interest to a few. One of the partial truths told by Real Estate promotors is that Panama has no property taxes. It is a partial truth because if your land does not host a condominium the first $30,000 valuation is tax free, the rest is taxable. In addition if you make improvements, build a house, there may be a an exoneration for up to twenty years.

This is not about the houses but about the land. If you have a farm with no house and a value of up to $150,000 there is also a five year rolling tax exoneration.

I call it rolling because you need to reapply each five years. My anniversary is in August and knowing the speed of the government I started the process a week ago.

This the pile of papers you need:
1. Copy of your cedula or passport
2. If a pensionado a copy of your carnet
3. If your property is owned by a corporation a document from the Registro Publico showing you are authorized to act for the corporation. We discovered that the document must be current, $30.
4. A copy of the property registration to you or your corporation from the Registro Publico, within the past year, $30
5. A Certification from Catastro and Anati that the property is in good standing and is owned by your or the corporation. Free!
6. A letter and a copy signed by the authorized representative of the corporation or you if the land is in your name to Director of MIDA in David requesting the exoneration.

We now have the pile of papers and they need to be delivered to MIDA this week. MIDA will then order an inspection of the property to be sure it is really a farm.

Once that is done we wait for the next steps in the paper trail. Hopefully the exoneration will be issued before August. I am still six years into another exoneration request for a house. Things move slowly.