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k, to answer your last question first, my career was spent in public service. I was a faceless petty bureaucrat working for the Michigan Department of Public Health.
Now, the problem today is that the estate tax has become irrelevant. Hating the estate tax is truly beating a dead horse.
Taxation and other public policies enacted in the last thirty or so years have accomplished exactly what our Founding Fathers sought to avoid. The concentration of wealth and income at the very top has created a [i]de facto[/i] American nobility who lack only noble titles. And they have come to pull all the strings. So whether the estate tax is imposed at the one million dollar level or at the five million dollar level doesn’t matter. It’s the billionaires running things and they’re hiding their wealth in places where no IRS agent will ever be able to attach them. Their heirs will be governing our lives for all the foreseeable future.
Love it or hate it, the central argument in favor of the estate tax is that by reducing the transfer of enormous wealth from one generation to another, it has the effect of preventing the creation of a small group of hereditary superrich who have done nothing to create the wealth they might otherwise inherit. Beginning with the Founding Fathers, there has always been a sentiment in the U.S. that there should not be a large and very privileged class who have created nothing and contribute little to the public good and who rest upon the labors of their ancestors.
In that context, the estate tax was created to achieve a social purpose and not to produce revenues. As such, it achieves what is perceived to be a “social” goal much like the goal of increasing home ownership by permitting the deduction of home mortgage interest or enhancing personal health by permitting the deduction of excess medical care costs or by allowing a deduction for the costs of higher education.
It is certainly true that an estate of a million dollars is hardly big time money any longer, but it is also true that the estate tax, however imposed, has actually affected a very small number of families in any seriously negative way despite the rhetoric to the contrary.
When the estate tax was increased some years ago, the American Farm Bureau screamed that it would be the death knell of the family farm, as survivors would have to liquidate their holdings to pay the tax. Well, when they went looking for an example to parade around, they couldn’t find one. Not one! Likewise, small business advocates couldn’t find more than a very few businesses that would have survived intact were it not for the estate tax.
The arguments against the estate tax, nevertheless, convince me. Were it mine to do, I’d impose a tax on all current income only and let that be it.
When I’m in charge, there’ll be some changes made . . .
[quote=”costaricabill”]David –
If you “employ” your gardner, are you obligated to pay him the aquinaldo?
[/quote]Bill, because the gardener decides when to come, whom to bring, and what to do when they’re here, and because we pay much more than the minimum on a daily basis, we consider them to be contractors who are not eligible for the [i]aguinaldo[/i]. In effect, we pay it daily throughout the year.
Now, the Ministry of Labor might dispute that, but there’s no question that they benefit financially from their labor at a much higher rate than the Ministry would expect. Too, they are enrolled in the CAJA via some other avenue. I expect that they’re paying their CAJA fees independently.
We employ only a gardener and whomever he decides to bring on any given day to help. We began by paying them the daily rate that they requested for the first couple of years. Then, without any discussion, we have voluntarily increased that rate two or three times.
I’m sure we’re now paying well above the legal minimum daily wage for a gardener, but they do good work and come regularly, and we’ve become friends.
[quote=”pebo1″]When is the marchamo due?[/quote]
The [i]marchamo[/i] is due to be paid before the end of December. You can pay it at any bank, any INS company office, and lots of other places. You can also pay it online if you bank at a Costa Rican bank and use that system.
Because this isn’t the eighteenth century, Scott, doesn’t mean that bigotry is any less alive and well. It’s all around us. Ask any Costa Rican for his or her opinion of Nicaraguans, for example. And that won’t be an isolated example.
As for the Pope declaring that everyone else is put on this earth to serve Catholics, it would be considered by reasonable people to be the same quality of bigotry and bullshit as the quote from the Chief Rabbi, so we can dismiss that.
The expulsions of Jews from one place or another have their roots in bigotry, for sure, but also in other social, cultural and economic factors. One need look no farther than their expulsion from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella for a prime example.
Because Catholic Christians could not lend money at interest, the royal families of Spain financed their campaigns to drive the Moors out of Spain by borrowing from Spain’s Jews who lived under no such restriction. For as long as the Spanish royalty needed Jewish financing, the Jews were welcomed, but once the Moors were effectively driven as far south as Toledo, the tables turned. Suddenly, the Jews, holders of all that debt, weren’t so welcome after all. And the expulsion began.
So, was it the Spanish Jews’ fault that they were driven out? Or were they expelled because it was cheaper than paying them back what was rightfully owed?
[quote=”Scott”] I like to use authoritative sources VictoriaLST like the the former Chief Rabbi of Israel for example – let’s call him the Jewish Pope – who is publicly quoted in the Jerusalem Post stating that:
“The sole purpose of non-Jews is to serve Jews
Goyim were born only to serve us.
Without that, they have no place in the world
Only to serve the People of Israel.”[/quote]
This sounds uncomfortably familiar . . . Oh, yeah! I’ve read exactly these sentiments from seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth century European and American texts, only substitute “non-whites” for “non-Jews” and “the lesser races” for “Goyim”.
Bigotry is hardly the sole province of the Jews.
[quote=”rosiemaji”]There are many reputable attorneys in Costa Rica. It would help to know where you are located so members in that area can forward names to you who have given good service.[/quote]
That’s exactly right. Most of the attorneys here are reliable and upstanding. It would help not only to know where you’re located, as you’ll need access to your attorney more than you think, but also what, if any, special issue you need an attorney for. Most do not do enough residency work to specialize in it. If that’s your issue, you need a different referral than if you need a will written.
Thank you, Scott and crf. These are just the leads I was hoping for. These, plus the World of Snakes in Grecia, should keep them happy.
[quote=”Scott”][quote=”DavidCMurray”]Scott, I don’t dispute a single fact that you’ve stated above, but unfortunately little of it is on point.[/quote]
I would have thought that this was the whole point David…
“Britain had no right of any kind to give Palestine away, in whole or in part, to anybody.”
[/quote]
The point I was going for, Scott, is that all the history, both ancient and recent, is irrelevant. It is the facts as they are today, the current situation, that must be resolved.
Whether the crusaders were doing God’s work in the thirteenth century or whether it was the Muslims is meaningless. Whether Britain had a right to cede anything to anyone doesn’t matter today. They did it. It stuck. There’s no changing it.
All that matters today is that an accommodation be found that makes reasonable allowance for the legitimate interests of both the Jews and the Palestinians who are living there today.
[quote=”costaricafinca”]If you already have the CR license, you [i]should[/i] be good to go….[/quote]
I’m confident that crf is right, Bill. Once you have your Costa Rican driver’s license in hand, renewing it should not be a problem.
Note this, however . . . Your driver’s license number today (the one that was issued to you based upon your passport number) must be the same as your [i]cedula[/i] number once your cedula is issued to you. So when you go to renew your driver’s license, you’ll need to begin by having its number changed to your [i]cedula[/i] number (assuming you’ve been issued your [i]cedula[/i] by then).
I don’t think there is any compelling reason to have your driver’s license number updated until you go to renew it.
I’m afraid you have it right, Bill. It’s not just a matter of the iPhone having been “subscribed” (your term) to Verizon. The electronic components inside the iPhone which commit it to use on a GSM system or on a CDMA cellular system are incompatible. There’s nothing you can do to one of them to make it functional on the other system.
This isn’t an administrative issue of who sold the iPhone or what its internal software settings are. It’s a matter of the nature of the two cellular systems (GSM and CDMA), how they operate, and the frequencies they operate on.
The latest word in this regard is that you must have your residency [i]cedula[/i] in hand in order to be given a Costa Rican driver’s license [b]AND[/b] that your most recent entry into Costa Rica must have been fewer than ninety days ago when you apply [b]AND[/b] that your “home” driver’s license (from the U.S., Canada, or wherever) must be unexpired.
So even if you have your Immigration file number in hand and are no longer required to leave the country in order to qualify for a new tourist visa, it appears that you must leave and re-enter in order to renew the ninety days during which your home driver’s license qualifies you for a Costa Rican one.
You can only legally drive on your “home” license for ninety days after your most recent entry, and that license must remain unexpired.
Now wait a minute, Les! If sprite is going to unload all her dollars, I want in on the action. I don’t care if she doesn’t think they have value. Somebody will and I want to be there when they do.
Sheesh! Don’t hog it all!
Is the home that they built for you framed in heavy tubular steel or the “light” corrugated steel framing that’s becoming more common in the States? Either way, if what they constructed for you is a steel “framework” that’s conceptually similar to the framing you’d expect to see in a stick-built house in the States, how did you handle the infill, the space between framing members?
What encloses the exterior and how did you finish the interior?
