Blue Thunder paperwork

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When I got into the country the Panamanian customs (aduana) stamped my passport saying that i cannot leave without the car. That is a problem, since my plan was to leave BT with Eloisa and take off for colombia. We spent most of the day monday (and also the previous friday) trying to figure out our options. This information is not available on the internet and was difficult to find, so here I make my contribution to this amazing creation of mankind my making this information public and googlable:

Leaving your car in Panama.

Because many people used to drive from the US and simply abandon their cars parked on the street to rotten, the Panamanian government determined that one cannot drive here and leave the country without the car, unless with the customs authorization. One option is to nationalize the car, which means that you will have to pay all the importantion taxes, and then sell it to compensate for the expenses. The taxes and fees are a percentage of the value of the car, determined by the customs. There are lots of agencies (corretor de aduana) around town that will help you with the paperwork. The first problem with this option is that the valuation done by the customs may have little to do with the market value of your car. They will take the original price when it was new and depreciate it according to how old it is and the general condition of the vehicle, but the maximum depreciation is 60%, which means that even if you drove a piece of junk down central america, for the Panamanian customs, it is worth 40% of its price BRAND NEW.
For example, I drove a 1993 Mazda with all sorts of minor problems, from a rotten exaust pipe to a windshield that lets water in. I´d be lucky if I got 7 or 8 hundrend bucks for it in the US. But the original price of the car new was 10,854.00, 40% of that value is 4,341.60. Customs will add 14% for freight, no matter how much driving it here actually cost and an additional 1% that I didn´t quite understand what it was for. Magically, my car is valued at 4,992.83 US dollars.
Now comes the fun part: importantion tax is 15% ($748.92), that added to the total valuation of the car and taken 5% makes up another fee ($287.08) and there is an additional flat fee of $75.50 (which are actually two fees of $70 and $5.50). Total price paid to the aduana: $1,111.05, not including the $100 fee for the agency that did the paperwork. After that you still have to register the car and get panamanian plates before selling it, which means more expenses, hassle and several more days, which you may not be able to spare.
The market value of the car in Panama is between 1500 and 2000 dollars, so there is a chance I could make a profit out of it, but I didn´t have the time and I didn't want to take the risk. So I searched for other options.
You are allowed to leave the country without the car if you leave it in a warehouse of the aduana. These are run by private companies that have a direct relationship with the customs. In theory you should leave it there to pick it up later, but if you don´t it is considered abandoned after 90 days and it becomes property of the state. Obviously the warehouse won´t keep your car for free, but you can make a deal like I did. I told the people at the warehouse that i didn´t intend to pick up the car and i didn´t care what they did with it as long as I am allowed to leave the county. So the onwer agreed to keep the car and give me the letter I was supposed to take to the customs to get the stamp I needed. In exchange I signed a power of attorney to the owner of the warehouse, allowing him to pay the importation taxes and register the car under his name. The whole process didn´t take more than three hours. He was nice enough to go to the customs with me and made sure I got the stamp I needed. Nothing we did was illigal, but it´s pretty unofficial. We had to tell the aduana people that I was coming back for the car. He is basically going to do what I didn´t want to: nationalize it and sell it. I´m pretty sure he can get a good deal out of it, because he didn´t even inspect the car, he barely saw it. Maybe the fact that I had driven all the way from the US was enough proof that the car worked fine.
The warehouse I went to was:
"Kinte, S.A." at Via Frangipany, in front of the Hospital Santa Fe.
The name of the owner is Gabriel E. Alvarado A.
cel: 678-1447
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

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Comments

[Lobão]

Por que não?
Não é possível fazer a travessia Panamá-Colômbia de carro? Balsa, navio, etc?