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Earning a living here is a very difficult undertaking. Many have tried and most have failed. The best advice is to bring your money with you. That’s why the majority of expats other than Latin American workers are retirees with stable unearned incomes from Social Security, pensions, or savings.
Too, Costa Rica is cracking down on “perpetual tourists” who leave the country every ninety days to qualify for a new tourist visa. To be safe, you should fully understand the requirements for legal residency and be prepared to meet them. Meeting with a knowledgeable Costa Rican attorney who specializes in residency matters would be a wise move if you are seriously considering living here.
As for the cost of living . . . Well, it all depends on what you need, what you want, and (maybe) what you can live without. Many things are cheaper here than in North America, but that is not universally true. Your best bet would be to carefully consider the lifestyle you want to lead here and to price it out on your first visit. Then decide if you have the necessary resources. Only you can tell what your costs will be.
maravilla, I wouldn’t use any of the substances you named either, but if they became more available and less expensive, others likely would. And there would be no benefit to anyone. Who, after all, ever benefitted from using cocaine? And who suffered?
I liken this situation to the one I witnessed while I was in the Navy. There, cigarettes were sold tax-free (about $.10 per pack ashore and $.05 on shipboard). Practically everyone smoked. In a different population (civilians), every time cigarette taxes go up, smoking goes down a little.
Elizabeth and maravilla, I think bringing sugar addiction or other unhealthy lifestyle behaviors into the discussion clouds the issue. You’re absolutely right that those and many other choices have negative effects on health, but that fact alone does not argue convincingly in favor of making (now) illegal drugs legal. If that logic held up, then we might as well discard seatbelt laws. After all, not using seatbelts is just one more unhealthy behavior.
And you cannot assume that those who might come new to the world of substance dependence would abandon some otherwise unhealthy behavior when they took up drugs. I hazard to say that the incidence of hypertension, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, inactivity, etc are as high or higher among substance abusers as compared to the general population.
How many more unhealthy behaviors do we need?
[quote=”VictoriaLST”] . . .and we usually withdraw collones from the ATM. Do we need to keep the ATM receipts as proof of conversion and is that sufficient?
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Your ATM receipts are NOT SUFFICIENT for proof of “dollar-to-colon” conversions because they do not identify you and they do not show the exchange rate. If Immigration accepted ATM receipts, you could show them your own, mine, or anybody else’s. How would they know?
That’s why you must withdraw dollars from the ATM and take them to the bank teller to get colones and a detailed receipt for the conversion.
[quote=”loraine”]Corporations with only real estate in them are classified inactive. [/quote]
This is actually not correct. Corporations are active or inactive based upon how they are registered in the National Registry. If they are registered as “active”, they are liable for the active corporate tax until such time as they are re-registered as “inactive”. A corporation can be nothing more than the holder of a piece of real estate, with no economic activity whatsoever, and still be registered as “active” and liable for the full tax rate.
It’s entirely a matter of how the corporation is registered in the National Registry and nothing more.
Costa Rica certainly could confiscate and then sell or give away the illegal drugs it seizes, but to do so would be to encourage substance dependence. And that increased drug dependence would have secondary costs to the health care system and to the economy in diminished productivity. The government could do the same with alcohol, but I’m not convinced that such policies would be in the broader public interest.
Decriminalizing possession and use of modest amounts of otherwise illegal drugs would save enormous costs to the government and thus free up resources to address larger problems.
The financial requirement for [i]pensionado[/i] temporary residency is that you have a guaranteed lifetime income of $1,000US or more [u]and[/u] that you convert $1,000US to colones each month that you are in the status of a temporary resident. [u]There is [u]no requirement[/u] to have a Costa Rican bank account[/u]. In fact, it is becoming increasingly difficult to even open a bank account here until you have your residency [i]cedula[/i] in hand.
So, to meet the $1,000US conversion requirement, you can withdraw U.S. dollars from an ATM and walk into the bank and convert them to colones. It doesn’t have to be done all at once, and Immigration will not be too concerned if you don’t convert exactly $1,000 each month as long as you convert $12,000 to colones during the year.
The “proof” requirement is either that you have receipts stamped by the bank teller which show your name, your passport number, the date of the exchange, the amount exchanged, and the exchange rate or else you must obtain a letter from the bank which lists all those conversions. What will not suffice is to withdraw colones at an ATM from your bank in the U.S. where, of course, the account is denominated in dollars. The ATM receipt will not show your name, the exchange rate, etc. That’s why you have to take your dollars inside, to the teller, to convert them to colones.
It has been reported elsewhere that Immigration is no longer checking [i]pensionados'[/i] proofs of their currency conversions, but it would be a mistake not to have them just in case.
If you are able to open an account at either Banco Nacional or Banco de Costa Rica, you can arrange for your Social Security to be deposited there each month, but that is not mandatory. You can move money to your account here by international wire transfer, by writing a check on your U.S. bank, or by withdrawing cash from ATMs here.
bill, Cemaco has FoodSaver bags from time to time. They cost is about what they cost in the U.S., so there’s no advantage to importing them save for the matter of availability.
pebo1, PriceSmart sells USDA New York strip steaks and also tenderloins or rib eyes. They’re clearly marked, but they’re mixed in with the packaged local cuts, so you have to look carefully.
crbill, I understand the vacuum-packing part, but are you aging these cuts in the bottom of the [u]refrigerator[/u] (at around 37 degrees F) or in the bottom of the [u]freezer[/u] (at near zero)?
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I should add here that anyone who’s buying any amount of meat in bulk (we shop at our local [i]carniceria[/i] every three or four weeks) really should invest in a home vacuum packer. FoodSaver is a commonly sold brand in the U.S., on Amazon, etc. Sometimes Cemaco has them.
The bags are unique to vacuum sealers. You can’t use Glad bags or the like. And they’re not cheap, but if you cut them from the rolls they sell and cut them oversize, rather than buying the premade bags, you can turn them inside out, wash them and let them dry, and reuse them several times.
[quote=”Rf2cr”]Just heard that a friend taking a street dog back to the US had to pay a $175.00 exit tax before boarding in San Jose. Anyone know the truth of this – also does it apply to dogs brought in from the US?[/quote]
Two questions: First, where did you hear this?
Second, how can the tax collector determine whether a dog bound for the U.S. is a “street” dog, a dog bred in Costa Rica, or a dog that was imported from abroad?
maravilla has it right. Something doesn’t sound right.
The only thing that matters as far as the annual corporation tax is concerned is how the corporation is legitimately registered in the National Registry. If it’s registered as an “active” corporation (even though it may have no activity whatsoever), then the proper tax is at the higher level. It may be a legal fiction, but that registered status is what governs.
There should be no problem changing the status of your corporation, however. If your attorney cannot do this for a reasonable fee, you might shop around for an alternative. The attorney who created the corporation has no special standing with respect to it. You can have any attorney you wish do the corporation’s work.
[quote=”maravilla”]. . . [a narco state is] an area that has been taken over and is controlled and corrupted by drug cartels and where law enforcement is effectively nonexistent;…
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn[/quote]maravilla, when you characterize Costa Rica as a “narco state”, pursuant to the definition above or as most people think of the term, I think you greatly overstate the case and you do both Costa Rica and those who might consider coming here a real disservice.
A while back, I read a biography of Pablo Escobar, the notorious Columbian drug lord and head of the Cali Cartel. He was famous for either controlling judges, prosecutors and police or killing them. Columbia was a killing field as are some parts of Mexico today.
In no sense of the term, “narco state”, can Costa Rica be characterized as a “narco state” in the sense that Columbia was (and may still be) or as Mexico has become narco states.
To be sure, every sort of illegal substance is available here pretty much wherever you look. Costa Rica has that in common with the rest of the world. And Costa Rica and its coastal waterways are a northbound conduit for drugs bound for the U.S., but the narcotics trade does not control or intimidate the nation’s law enforcement establishment in general. There is no evidence that the National Assembly is stacked with cartel-selected members. And there are, at most, scattered reports of violence that can be directly attributed to drug interests. Are there some drug gangs? Unquestionably, yes, but the presence of a few gangs in a few areas (areas where most of us would never go) hardly qualifies Costa Rica as a “narco state”.
Assuming the worst, Les, that the exchange is made here in Costa Rica, neither your pittance nor mine constitutes a full drop in the bucket. The problem is far greter than anything either of us can affect.
[quote=”maravilla”] . . .drugs are the biggest problem CR has at the moment.[/quote]
Are drugs really the biggest problem that Costa Rica has at the moment or does the drug problem simply get the most coverage in the news you watch?
What are the next biggest problems Costa Rica has? And how do you know?
[quote=”VictoriaLST”]Dave, if my son makes $70k and a CEO bakes 7 million or 70 million, my only concern is that my son’s $70k gets him what he needs, allows for some luxuries and lets him save for the future. That’s what is wrong with the video.[/quote]
But Victoria, the video only presents objective facts. Those facts are dreived from personal income tax returns and Bureau of Labor Statistics. They have nothing to do with how much your son or anybody else earns or how adequate those earnings are to meet his or their needs.
What’s your objection to reporting the facts?
