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While I am in no way supportive of development in documented turtle nesting areas, I would love to know of some organizations that are working with the government to educate locals on the devastation of illegal harvesting. There is an individual in Limon who regularly walks through the local beach front restaurants selling dozens of eggs at a time already injected with tobasco and ready to eat. While increasing fines and punishment for fellows like this would help, educating the fathers who bought for their extended families and children (the boys understand it to be a promoter of virility) of the long term impact on the environment and the economy might be more valuable. Most of the organizations I know of study the turtles or fight against developers, but the low hanging fruit to me is the local population.
Hello. This thread is very interesting. As an investment advisor working in international markets, we are fans of the IRA strategy. There are a handful of trust companies in the US that offer this type of service. We like Entrust as well as a couple of others. Perhaps the greatest benefit is one that has not been mentioned: you can actually benefit from leverage inside your IRA when investing in real estate, most notably foreign real estate, which cannot be said for traditional equity investments. The key to utilizing leverage, if you so desire, is to make sure that any loans established on investment properties are done with Non-recourse loans, meaning that you are not co-signing on the note. This means that the bank is taking the property as the sole support or recourse for the loan. That being done, a $50,000 down payment on a $150,000 property can be made, and as long as the IRA/401k/SEP can make any payments required to service the note, property taxes, utilities, etc. the entire profit if and when sold (or rental receipts) can be retained by the IRA without tax liability (or UBTI). As a side note, we are also investigating the creation of nursing centers (intermediate care+) and would be delighted to chat with you. Warm Regards, Richard
Understanding that I am not an expert in this area, I do deal extensively in Latin America and other parts of the world which necessitates some basic understandings. In most instances we have found that an S.A. is not appropriate for someone who is a citizen of the US or subject to the US tax laws. I would urge anyone purchasing property or starting a business to utilize one of the recommended attorney offered by Scott Oliver. I believe Scott also knows our attorney, Ricardo Cordero, with NCC Abogado in Escazu. This is not a pitch for an attorney, but a suggestion that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. There are structures that are more tax efficient depending on what you intend to do. Warm Regards.
With all due respect, the US tax system has been going downhill since it was started. I am afraid that US citizens have traded their rights along with their accountability to the government by electing more and more big government folks. One of the great attractions of CR is that they seem in many ways to be moving toward truer democracy while the US seems to be moving toward socialism. I am not sure what you mean by the Elephants, but I am sure many who deal with economic trends and investment as I do would agree that this propensity for big government and higher taxes used to be the mantra of the donkeys in the US…but the infection is spreading.
