I went to Bogota this weekend to get the last of my paperwork in order to get married on my next trip in 3 weeks. I had gone to the Colombian Consulate in Miami and gotten a visa that allows me to get married in Colombia that was pasted into my passport. When I went through immigration going into Colombia they saw the marriage visa but I told them I wasn't getting married this trip and they didn't do anything.
This morning when I returning home and went to the Bogota airport and tried to get my tax exemption, they wouldn't give me an exemption because I had the marriage visa in my passport. Apparently marriage visas are treated like business visas and are not entitled to the tourist tax exemption. I told the guy I didn't get married this trip and that as an American I didn't even need a visa to visit Colombia, but it fell on deaf ears and he refused to give me an exemption and I had to pay a $15 tax when I went to the ticket counter that I normally don't have to pay.
This sucks, since I will continuing to visit Colombia every 2 to 3 weeks until my fiancee/soon to be wife gets her spousal visa approved sometime at the end of March or early April, which is 4 or 5 trips times $15 (the visa is valid for 5 months so I will be subject to it until it expires). I was playing around with the visa and I was able to peel it off pretty easily so I think I will just remove the visa since I don't need it anymore now that the notary public who is marrying us has already seen it, or rather had seen a photocopy of it, which is apparently all he needed. This is not illegal as long as I don't damage the passport page it is on since I don't need a visa to enter Colombia, even to get married, it is just that most notaries require it to marry you.
I was surprised nobody on this board has mentioned this denial of tax exemption (or maybe they have and I didn't see it). Or maybe I am the first gringo to encounter it. So I would recommend you remove your marriage visa from you passport as soon as the notary has seen it or you have made a photocopy of it, so you can avoid being denied the tax exemption.
