FACTA Revisited. What to do if you are a U.S. citizen.

What if you opened account with a US Passport, got residency and changed everything at the bank relating to identification to your cedula?

[quote=”davidd”][quote=”costaricabill”]What if you opened account with a US Passport, got residency and changed everything at the bank relating to identification to your cedula?[/quote]

good question.. and only by going thru the process will this be revealed..

my suggestion.. open up new accounts with your cedula and close any accounts that you opened with a passport.

these are the little things one discovers by actually living here. for example.

with the corporation tax.. many that I had were originally opened with my passport..

then i just transferred the assets out of the S.A. and just let the corp.. wither away on its own.

[/quote]

When you use the term “wither away on its own” I hope you don’t mean just don’t pay the taxes and not close out the S.A. properly. Those type of moves tend to have a funny way of resurrecting themselves when you least expect it…. and costing more then if things had been done the right way. Perhaps not today… or next week…. or even next year…. but at some point when you leave the clock ticking on a government debt…. they come looking to collect!
And with as desperate as governments are becoming… do yourself a favor and don’t place yourself in the crosshairs!

I think you will find that no matter what your local bank manager in Costa Rica tells you, the Costa Rican banks and other financial institutions have have been sharing what most people considered ‘private’ financial information about U.S. citizens with the U.S tax authorities for years, especially if there ever was movement of US$10,000 or more to and from that account.

If you waited until you had your Costa Rica residency approved and opened your Costa Rica bank account with your cedula (which has to be a tiny percentage of people) then you ‘may’ be safe from prying eyes – temporarily.

But we should also remember that the cedula used to be coded by your nationality, *I honestly don’t know if that is still the case today*, I will try to find out, but if it is, they will obviously know who are U.S. citizens by your cedula…

I don’t think that “open up new accounts with your cedula and close any accounts that you opened with a passport” will help because your privacy has already compromised.

Lastly, if [url=http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/11/the-ultimate-goal-of-the-nsa-is-total-population-control]William Binney (ex-NSA)[/url] is correct when he says that: “At least 80% of fibre-optic cables globally go via the US… This is no accident and allows the US to view all communication coming in. At least 80% of all audio calls, not just metadata, are recorded and stored in the US. The NSA lies about what it stores.”

Then I would agree with Imxploring 100% when he says: “And with as desperate as governments are becoming… do yourself a favor and don’t place yourself in the crosshairs!”

PS. Ron Miller summed this out of control surveillance state up beautifully in his article: [url=http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9247007/Ron_Miller_NSA_can_track_every_email_but_it_can_t_find_a_plane]NSA can track every email, but it can’t find a plane.[/url]

Here’s what he said:

“We are told that we can be easily tracked through our smartphones and other electronic devices. We are told that this data collection is done in the name of making us safer, by stopping a terrorist attack in real time.

We are led to believe that if we collect enough information — indeed, if we collect all of the information — we can see the connections and make the leaps and stop attacks before they happen.

That’s what we’re told. That’s the justification for all this surveillance. And yet if we can’t find a jumbo jet after nine days in a world covered by satellite cameras and radar facilities, are we supposed to believe that collecting every one of our emails and listening to every one of our phone calls and following every one of us around as we move through our lives will make us safer?”

Desperate governments…. just like desperate people will do rather strange things to survive. To think that a change in passport numbers or residency takes you off the field of battle is not a position to put yourself in when an acknowledged LEGAL means of avoiding the issue exist. If nothing else residency is something they can hold over your head when addressing a TAX liability.

Looks at the recent situation with the US government going after family members for the Social Security liabilities of deceased parents. In many cases the alleged debts were several years old with no prior collection attempts until Uncle Sam went after bank accounts. The word desperate comes to mind when a large government is going after crumbs!