See the previous article on this subject here

Date: Monday 29 March 2010

Subject: Boat blocked and unblocked by SENIAT (Venezuelan tax authorities)

Message:

I’d like to report to your users, the administrative adventure we lived this week in Isla Margarita, Venezuela, where we have lived since 2005 and owned a sailing catamaran since 2009.

Our catamaran was berthed at Marina Hilton just for this week (the hotel changed its name, but not the marina yet), in order to move all our stuff from the house as we are leaving this month.

We’re a family with 3 young girls (11, 11 and 12) and intend to spend the next few months travelling between Margarita, Los Roques, Curaçao…

On 23 March, the Seniat guys (tax officers) came to the marina and put big red stickers on a quarter of the boats saying “RETENCION PREVENTIVA”.

We had to go to Guamache (50km from the Marina) on the 26th, in order to present the documentation (everything following the rules).

We then had to go back today, the 29th, to collect the document that supposedly “frees” our boat/house.

All said and done, thanks to the tax officers, everything was clearly explained (as we live here, we should nationalise the ship but they gave us another year to do that) and we went home with the magical document!

I must say that I was very satisfied with the people I dealt with and it was NEVER suggested that I pay anything illegal (0 CORRUPTION).

Valerie Lorenzo