In a hastily called meeting yesterday, new Mayor, Honorable Dale Jackson along with Honorable members of the Municipal Council blasted Roatan Realtors for not doing their part in seeing that the Jan 2005 imposed 1% Municipal Transfer tax was collected and paid to city hall.
In a vocal and sometimes spirited 2 hour meeting, Mr. Jackson and others on the council, including, the Hon. Julio Galindo, suggested the real estate community may not be reporting totally accurate numbers. Mr. Galindo suggested that the $32M in closed transactions reported to city hall in 2005 was highly incorrect and should in reality be closer to the $300M mark. (maybe somewhere in between ?!?)...
On the other side of the table were more than 40 local developers, realtors and business people who tried to suggest more efficient ways for the Municipality to monitor and collect these taxes.
"These taxes are collected along with the legal fees by the representing attorney and paid directly to the municipality in order to recieve the Cadastral Certificate required to register any and all land sales", said Mr. Alejandro Tugliani, attorney.
What seems to be happening is that when properties are owned in the name of Honduran stock Corporations, sales are processed as a simple share transfer and therefore, re-registration is not necessary, thus the avoidence of the tax. This is Legal, and is the way the law is structured. It's hard for anyone to argue with Honduran law.
It was suggested that the Municipality look at the ways to enforce this 1% Municipal law by strengthening its relationship with the Registrar's Office, in addition to their calling on Realtors to report all Corporation sales as well.
More than 24 Real Estate Brokerage licences have been issued by Roatan Municipality so far this year. Up from less than 8 just 2 years ago. We currently have just 12 companies in the Roatan Realtors Association. I also heard it said that perhaps the offending culprits may be someone outside this organization, or possibly attorneys by-passing the system. Whichever the case...we all pledged to work closely with Mr. Jackson to ensure more money in the coffer for the much needed improvements that the Municipality is already in the process of doing on and around Roatan.