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[quote=”Duth”][quote=”BillNew”]Blaming guns for shooting deaths makes as much sense as blaming automobiles for drunk driving deaths.
Why don’t we seek to find the type of automobile that is most commonly used in drunk driving deaths … then we can brand it an “assault auto” and ban it !
[/quote]
Thank Gawd France has such strict gun laws………….[/quote]Careful …
Last night Rob Lowe tweeted “NOW they close the borders” and he is persona non grata throughout the social media world.
It is not politically correct or acceptable to blame the victim … even if they are victims of their own stupidity. 🙄
BCR … and $15 was about all that they charged last year.
Of course, last year they didn’t charge anything on the foreign checks. Yeah, they sat on the money for 30 days even though those checks cleared my US account, without fail, within 48 hours of being presented to the CR bank.
[quote=”Scott”]
For the record… $100m2 for land where we live is CHEAP! The most recent land (approxiamtely 12,000m2)was bought by one of our developer clients in Santa Ana for $120m2Prices in Villa Real in Santa Ana for individual home lots are around $300m2 and in Valle del Sol between $250-$350m2
Scott
[/quote]
Geez !!
With 4047 sq meters to the acre … you’re looking at over $1.4 million per acre. Not really looking to appeal to the “huddled masses” at those prices .. eh?
And I thought $4.72 per sq meter was outrageous for a bit over 11 hectares just north of Atenas. I’m not really the gated community type. I’m more of a End of the Roader.
Take care.
[quote=”pharg”]The balance is ‘in cash’ because of the check cashing problems at C.R. banks (sometimes 30 days or more).
PEH[/quote]And … NEW for 2015 … a $40 fee to process foreign checks or $50 to receive a wire.
Well pebo …
Like Scott intimated, Costa Rica is pretty much headed in the same direction as the US, spending way too much more than it takes in and concentrating it’s taxation on the very few.
The luxury tax is really very different than your “property tax” though it is also levied on your property.
It was instituted as a temporary tax (Yeah! We’ve all heard that one before!) to help poorer Ticos get affordable housing. I think that it was only supposed to be for 10 years. But keep this in mind, there is no such thing as a temporary tax. We, in the US, are still paying taxes levied in WWII on items to curb demand.
Your property tax is paid to the canton. Your luxury tax is paid to the Ministry de Haciendas. http://www.hacienda.go.cr/ There is software available on their site to allow you to calculate your luxury tax. And yes, when the value of your structures exceeds a certain threshold, the luxury tax is also levied on the land itself using completely outrageous values per square meter.
It is not unusual to see land in gated communities valued at $100/ sq meter.
And yes, as Scott said, there are places in the US, generally highly liberal and socialist leaning, that have very high taxation on property. Their school districts are even taxing authorities that can levy taxes at will. And Costa Rica is not there yet but it seems that that is where they are headed … and where they want to be.
There are places, like Panama, that are doing all that they can to attract people of means, offering wide arrays of senior discounts (even on air fare), etc. Costa Rica has been making it pretty clear over the last several years that you are going to pay heavily to be an expat there.
Like most of the developed world, Costa Rica is facing a birth rate implosion. It may take 20 more years and severe economic depression, but their thinking will be modified eventually.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/costa-rica/population-growth-annual-percent-wb-data.html
Based on my(completely unscientific) study of Costa Rican real estate websites over the last 6-7 years, it seems to me that, for probably the first time in Costa Rica’s history, there are more people of means trying to get out of the country than are trying to get in.
Take care.
Blaming guns for shooting deaths makes as much sense as blaming automobiles for drunk driving deaths.
Why don’t we seek to find the type of automobile that is most commonly used in drunk driving deaths … then we can brand it an “assault auto” and ban it !
You may want to get a paid consultation through …
Don Nelson’s daughter lives in CR and he is both a US accountant and attorney living in California. His consultations via Skype or phone are (were) $300 but he is an expert in his field and can advise you whether to use an SA or SRL (which can be designated a flow though corporation like an LLC). He can tell you what individual tax forms that you will need to file to avoid several hundred thousands of IRS disclosure penalties, etc. Some folks only care about “cheap”. If you recognize that quality information is worth paying for, you may want to give a consultation with a knowledgeable person consideration. I can tell you that I wish that I had talked to him before forming an SA. Now, I file a form 5426, 8938, and 926 every year.
$300 would have been the deal of a lifetime as I would now be able to use very simple software such as TaxAct rather than going through what I do every year.
I also have a Private Charitable Foundation that requires a Form 990PF that is a nightmare all it’s own. My annual tax return looks like a NYC telephone book.
[quote=”Cancertomnpdx”]
I have purchased and owned a piece of property here since 2009 and never have been to either build and for health reason live on it. Why? Beautiful view of the mountains but to high up for emergencies health service to come to my aid in time to save my life.
[/quote]
The first question that I have always asked myself before buying property is “If I were to have a heart attack right now, what is it going to take …. and how long is it going to take to get me to world class medical care?”
If the answer exceeds “The Golden Hour” …. the deal is off !!
[quote=”Scott”]
I’ve had one rocking chair stolen from my garden in near 17 years of living here… So my experience and my opinions are clearly very different from yours…
Scott[/quote]
Granted, that everyone has different experiences …
I started looking for property in Costa Rica in 2009. In those days, Costa Rica always ranked in the Top 3 of all of “Best Places to Retire Abroad” feature stories. Today it doesn’t even make the list. The things that appealed to me the most were proximity to the US (as I have two aging parents) and the quality (and proximity) of available medical care as we’re all getting older and life is somewhat unpredictable. I finally found a nice little 11+ hectare farm north of Atenas and closed in late 2011.
My experience, thus far, has been that although the national sport may be soccer, it seems that the national pastime is a game called “Wring Out the Gringo.” Having to file a D-1 since some of the property was in a protected area, it wasn’t long until a “donation” was required (and specifically requested) to actually obtain the documents once approved.
I have also seen the advent of Luxury Tax. Have you seen the land tax values on the Mapas De Valores De Terrenos Por Zonas Homogeneas? 40,000-55,000 colones per square meter is not an uncommon value for gated communities. How long until these values become the standard canton tax rate?
Then there is the CAJA requirement for residency. I can understand a hosting government protecting their interests in wanting to make sure that their “guests” aren’t a financial burden but, when you specifically designate a provider, it makes it pretty clear that you are looking to the expats to bail out a failing system.
Property theft seems pretty rampant, both through crooked notarios and land invasions as we are currently watching in Las Olas. Although I’m not in agreement, I can definitely understand a socialist society’s giving a land interest to a long time caretaker. What I can’t understand is the ability of a squatter to sell those rights ? Under what theory can you possibly support that ?
I also agree that the US is on very bad path. But in many ways, Costa Rica is on exactly the same path. Proposed worldwide taxation, etc. Every person of means and every multi-national corporation with large offshore revenues is looking for a way out of the US. The US has the highest corporate income tax on the planet and claims dominion over their citizens (including corporations) wherever in the universe that they may be. Ever wonder how a man that kills his wife in Cancun gets hauled to a Phoenix court to stand trial ? That’s because the US claims dominion over you no matter where you go … and your earnings no matter where they are earned.
Not unlike the US, Costa Rica doesn’t seem to understand that the wealth of a nation is very simply the sum of wealth of the individuals in that nation. People of means provide jobs which in turn provide economic activity, taxes, etc. If you make it hard enough for people to live somewhere, if you keep telling them that they’re not welcome, if you promise them that you will tax the crap out of them if they live there, they will eventually get the message and move to a friendlier location.
On one real estate website, I have watched pretty much the same 64 homes for sale in Atenas for 3 years. The real estate market was completely stagnant for the 3 years prior to that during the so called Great Recession. A least two gated communities in the area haven’t sold a single lot in the same time frame. And here we are on the cusp of another recession, which have regularly occurred every 5-7 years since our obsession of Keynesian economics began. The last began in 2008 .. and the math is pretty easy from there.
I like Costa Rica, I really do. But I have to say that if I was starting today, instead of 2009, it would probably be somewhere else. As I’m sure that you are aware Scott, once a trend begins, it can go on for a very long time and often takes something radical to change the trend.
Like many mining operations today, I have put my project on “care & maintenance” until I can get a feel for just how much worse this is going to get. You would think that someone in the Costa Rican govt would be intelligent enough to look at population growth rate and birth rate and get a feel for how these policies are going to end.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/costa-rica/population-growth-annual-percent-wb-data.html
Whether it’s the US or Costa Rica, when the money leaves, so does the prosperity.
A newly proposed law would require a person to be a permanent resident for 5 years before being able to have a gun for protection. It seems that the Costa Rican govt only wants expats to be one thing … victims. Whether it be of petty or violent crime, property theft, or outrageous taxation.
