Three health, childhood, and elderly associations are exempted from income tax

The Executive Branch has declared three associations dedicated to women’s health, children in poverty, and older adults to be of public utility, thereby exempting them from income tax and requiring them to submit an annual management report. The decision is contained in executive decrees N° 45977-MJP, N° 45973-MJP, and N° 45917-MJP, published in La Gaceta N° 214 on Wednesday, November 11, 2026, in the Executive Branch Decrees section. The three texts bear the signatures of the President of the Republic, Laura Fernández Delgado, and the Minister of Justice and Peace, Gabriel Aguilar Vargas.

The legal framework of the declaration

The declarations are based on Article 32 of the Associations Law N° 218 of August 8, 1939, which empowers the Executive Branch to declare simple, federated, or confederated associations of public utility whose activities are particularly useful for the interests of the State. The decrees also invoke the Regulations to the Associations Law N° 29496-J, published in La Gaceta N° 96 on May 21, 2001, and Article 3, subsection ch), of the Income Tax Law N° 7092.

The exemption is neither automatic nor total. According to Article 3 of each decree, only income and assets destined “in their entirety and exclusively” for public purposes, environmental protection, or charity are exempt from the tax, and under no circumstances shall they be distributed among its members. Any portion not destined for such purposes, or distributed in any way among the associates, remains subject to the payment of the tax. Article 4 assigns control and oversight to the Tax Administration, in accordance with Articles 103 and 104 of the Tax Norms and Procedures Code N° 4755.

The three beneficiary organizations are:

• Asociación Instituto Femenino de Salud Integral, legal entity ID 3-002-665497, registered in the Associations Registry of the National Public Registry at volume 2012, entry 295451; decree signed on September 30, 2026.
• Asociación Divino Niño, ID 3-002-684273, registered at volume 2013, entry 313316; decree signed on September 30, 2026.
• Asociación de la Persona Adulta Mayor de Chachagua La Unión de Oro, ID 3-002-682522, registered on January 27, 2014, volume 2014, entry 55697; decree signed on August 11, 2026.

Care for women with unexpected pregnancies

Executive Decree No. 45977-MJP protects the Asociación Instituto Femenino de Salud Integral, whose statutory purpose is to “provide support and comprehensive care to women facing an unexpected pregnancy, crisis care, and help them discover and develop a new life project in accordance with their human dignity.” The file states that the organization began its term on January 15, 2013, and that its purposes “address a primary social need.”

Underprivileged Children and Older Adults

Executive Decree No. 45973-MJP declares the Asociación Divino Niño to be of public utility, whose statutes establish as objectives to provide care for underprivileged children in conditions of poverty, provide them with food in marginalized neighborhoods throughout the national territory, and instill in them ethical and moral values and principles.

Executive Decree No. 45917-MJP, signed by the Executive Branch on August 11, 2026, covers the Asociación de la Persona Adulta Mayor de Chachagua La Unión de Oro, which seeks to foster conditions so that older adults in that community have a “full and dignified quality of life,” guarantee the rights provided for in Law No. 7935, and develop actions to protect their physical and psychological integrity.

Counterweights: Annual Reports and Revocations

The declaration imposes an explicit duty on the three associations: to submit an annual management report to the Ministry of Justice and Peace, according to Article 32 of the Regulations to the Law of Associations. Additionally, the interested parties must notarize and present the testimony of the decree before the Registry of Associations of the National Registry, and the regulations take effect from the date of their publication.

This requirement is not merely formal. In the same edition, the Executive Branch revoked the public utility status of the Asociación Administradora del Acueducto de Volcán de Buenos Aires de Puntarenas (Executive Decree No. 45971-MJP) and the Asociación Hogar Madre del Redentor (Executive Decree No. 45970-MJP) for failing to submit their annual labor or requirement reports, whereby they lost their tax benefit.

Impact for Organizations and Their Beneficiaries

The three declarations alleviate the tax burden of small organizations operating with limited resources and which, without the exemption, would see the income intended to sustain their programs taxed. The benefit, however, remains conditional on transparency: public utility is revocable at any time, and failure to submit the annual report opens a revocation procedure, as shown by the two cases resolved in the same Gazette.

Source: La Gaceta, No. 214, November 11, 2026, Executive Branch — Decrees, pp. 2-6 (official reference: Executive Decrees No. 45977-MJP, No. 45973-MJP, and No. 45917-MJP).