Perhaps if someone with vacation rental property has made investments based upon tax avoidance, there could be some grandfather provision to phase in the taxes on these people, also for the sake of fairness. Even though this tax isn’t a rule change, it does change the application of the rules on investors, so maybe some temporary leeway is warranted. But big picture the aim is tax fairness.

And it’s completely irrelevant that others (like doctors and lawyers) cheat on their taxes, as well as that lots of government bureaucrats are overpaid. The first argument amounts to saying that because someone else steals $10,000 it’s OK for me to steal $1000. The second amounts to saying that because my tax dollars pay the salaries of some idiots in congress I shouldn’t have to pay any taxes at all for anything else.

Mostly, getting CR on solid fiscal footing requires a multi-pronged approach, and I for one am happy that Solís is focusing on enforcing tax collections before he considers raising taxes. Also, Solís is tackling the problem of huge pensions for government employees, as well as the bloated government bureaucracy (via a hiring freeze) and corruption. Taxes may ultimately need to be raised too, but everyone knows that there is widespread tax evasion, and addressing this is a better first step than just raising taxes (Chinchilla’s proposal). Addressing tax evasion effectively means addressing it everywhere it is found, including among those renting vacation property.