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You all do realize that in all of the embassy’s there is a IRS agent don’t you? Maybe you don’t realize but the U.S. has been swaying all of the Central and South American countries into transparency so they can nab the U.S. tax payers accounts world wide.
They have international lawyers that work on behalf of the U.S. government to work on behalf of the IRS, DEA and other agency’s
Since Costa Rica does follow the U.S. lead in many ways they will hand over any tax invaders.The IRS does not have full-time staff based in Costa Rica, embassy-based or otherwise. They do work hand in hand with embassy staff and contractors (American and Costa Rican) on in-country tax legislation, and with resident financial institutions on active investigations. There are in-country based IRS installations in Germany, France and a sizeable presence in China.
It may be subtle terminology (to some) but Costa Rica does not establish, decree or rule on allegations of American tax fraud; Costa Rica(and other nations) merely satisfies U.S. financial reporting obligations. They would “hand over” tax evaders subject to their policies of extradition, much as they would an American citizen convicted of other classifiable felonies determined in an American court.
The policy of international financial transparency, as I stated in an earlier post, is a well documented US stratagem. It was directionally outlined during our current President’s candidacy, and is now more thoroughly manifesting itself in IRS code and other financial conventions.
Please note that I did not opine on whether such policy is good, bad, effective or ominous.
For every one that posts in this forum there are 20 others reading them without participating directly, just making their opinion of who is right, wrong, intelligent, plain dumb, truthfull, etc..
I post very rarely here but read all of them on a weekly basis and I recognize some of the more frequent members by their comments when they post.
Sometimes I laugh when reading some comments and on other times I just shake my head.
El respeto y la educacion es mas importante que la razon.
Warren
From The fine desk of Doug Casey Research
Capital Controls Revisited
Yesterday we ran a story published over at zerohedge.com that made the claim that capital controls are now here and fully enforced by the law. After further review, however, it appears that claim is inaccurate. The HIRE act is not about capital controls, it’s really about enforcing IRS rules. One can still legally have money in offshore accounts as long as the financial institution and the individual report it to the IRS.The fact is that the HIRE act now signed into law makes it very costly for financial institutions not to report accounts and transactions to the IRS, and it gives the U.S. authorities ways to better enforce the requirements for U.S. citizens to report all bank and financial accounts they hold outside of the U.S. And financial institutions that do not cooperate will now see increased pressures from the U.S. government.
The law also closes a loophole that existed when a country’s banking secrecy laws (think Switzerland) did not permit foreign institutions to turn in info about U.S. citizens to the U.S. government; it now requires that these financial institutions close these accounts or face penalties from the U.S. government.
Consequences of this last round of tightening are:
1) More foreign financial institutions will decide to stop doing business with U.S. citizens and businesses. And it will become increasingly more difficult for Americans to open foreign bank and brokerage accounts.
2) Once the U.S. government actually decides to implement capital controls, it will have already collected all the information needed to possibly force repatriation of capital held by U.S. citizens in foreign financial accounts (this could be the next step but it would be much harder to implement).
So, let’s recap. Capital controls are in fact not yet here, but the pressure is on and the HIRE act is another step to restrict the economic freedom of Americans. We’ll keep you posted.
[i]Yesterday we ran a story published over at zerohedge.com that made the claim that capital controls are now here and fully enforced by the law. After further review, however, it appears that claim is inaccurate. The HIRE act is not about capital controls, it’s really about enforcing IRS rules.[/i]
As I’ve tried to state, your conclusion is, and always has been, precisely the revenue-side intent of the HIRE act. The term “after further review” is instructive and telling; the implication here is that certain claims made on the intent of HIRE were shaped prior to factual, non-political and non-emotional analysis. At best, this implies that the claimant did not do their homework, does not understand the particulars or has no desire to understand the intent. At worst, it could imply a deliberate attempt to mislead or stoke certain convictions.At the end of the day, I implore people to gather information from a variety of sources (and, hopefully, the originating source) prior to positing a position.
[i]So, let’s recap. Capital controls are in fact not yet here, but the pressure is on and the HIRE act is another step to restrict the economic freedom of Americans.[/i]
And I was beginning to feel so positive until I got to the last paragraph. Oh well.
KIMBALL WROTE:
“You want to find fault with capitalism for some strange reason.”Is that a joke? For some strange reason? Fault with our capitalistic society? I must have a different planet I reside on. Huxley once said, and forgive me, I paraphrase
We live in a contrived universe existing in a planless and incoherent world.
I suggest the latter has a strong argument V. the contrived universe loosely called capitalism, an amoral “ism”.
[quote=”twinzor1″]The IRS does not have full-time staff based in Costa Rica, embassy-based or otherwise. [/quote]
Well I guess I will have to tell my a co worker that… he will be surprised since he is one…hahahaha
I have seen it where they will freeze someones assets with the host nation cooperating fully… Costa Rica is one of them.
The IRS does not have full-time staff based in Costa Rica. I’ll assume since he is a co-worker of yours that either a) you are an employee of the IRS also or b) he is working for the IRS in a part-time (contractual) capacity, and serving as your co-worker in another endeavor. Can’t be certain about the first scenario, and if the second, he needs to be pretty careful about skirting agency moonlighting conflicts of interest. (Take a look at the current clampdown on CIA moonlighting COI.)
DEA, INS and other US agencies do have full-time personnel in Costa Rica. Not the IRS.
And please, read my posts carefully. I stated that a Costa Rican financial institution will cooperate in response to a US reporting obligation, a US judgement, action or request. My desire was to differentiate such activities (responses) from independently-initiated activity by a Costa Rican financial institution, or the Costa Rican government.
what makes you so sure the IRS doesn’t have an agent here fulltime? i’ve been told by several people, who should know, that they do! same for the CIA.
[quote=”maravilla”]what makes you so sure the IRS doesn’t have an agent here fulltime? i’ve been told by several people, who should know, that they do! same for the CIA.[/quote]
[Wizard of OZ]” IGNORE that man behind the curtain!![/Wizard of OZ]
[quote=”twinzor1″] I’ll assume since he is a co-worker of yours that either a) you are an employee of the IRS also or b) he is working for the IRS in a part-time (contractual) capacity, and serving as your co-worker in another endeavor. Can’t be certain about the first scenario.[/quote]
You left out one more option, maybe I work in the U.S. embassy with in a different agency. In the embassy environment agency work together in different ways and that is why we are co-workers.
But what ever… again Costa Rica is a easy country to work with and the U.S. has a long arm.
😀[b]what makes you so sure the IRS doesn’t have an agent here fulltime? i’ve been told by several people, who should know, that they do! same for the CIA.[/b]
In my role within the IRS – up until 2008 – I was responsible for developing strategy for the deployment, communications and inter-agency interface needs for IRS staff. More relevant, my wife was a director for the FDIC in bank supervision- in addition to closing non-performing banks in the US, she worked closely with the IRS globally to assist foreign countries establish banking regulations to protect depositors (yes, even including American deposits on foreign soil.)
I understand your friends, confidants and colleagues are relaying information to you regarding the IRS, and the existence of a US agent/installation there full-time. And I’ll say one more time, many IRS agents pass through Central American nations frequently to work with embassy-based personnel on a number of engagements. (BTW, when they do work on such engagements, they don’t typically “advertise” their work assignment and rarely, their agency affiliation.) But there is no full-time, embassy-based IRS installation anywhere in Central America. DEA- yes. Agriculture- yes. FDA- yes.
But maybe I’m wrong. Would you guys mind sharing the name or title of the employee(s), in a PM? He or she would have transferred from the US, or trained in Washington, Chicago or Atlanta at some point, most likely Operations Support where we would have crossed paths.
Before anyone gets the impression that I relish in the petty, my original participation in this thread was simply to question the notion of surreptitious activity, vis-a-vis the HIRE act, on the part of the IRS in Costa Rica.
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