The government has a questionaire which asks a series of things like the square meters of you lot and the square meters of the house. And other things like the age of the home the length of the fence and or the number of gates, etc. We just spent the a couple of hours filling out the form.

For us expats and migrators to Costa Rica, this law is just starting to cause some disturbances in our otherwise undisturbed lives here (smile).

Here's the guts of the law in question:
"Every U.S. person must furnish information annually with respect to any foreign corporation which that person controls. Additionally, every U.S. citizen or resident must file an information return if he or she becomes a 10 percent shareholder in a foreign corporation during the year, and/or if he or she becomes an officer or director of a foreign corporation in which a U.S. person is a 10 percent shareholder. The form the IRS has prescribed for such returns is Form 5471, Information Return of U.S. Persons with Respect to Certain Foreign "

I think that many have decided that the law is just too unruly to pay any attention to. I suspect that this isn't the best conclusion, but we're in the process of looking into it. The fact is that the law could very likely impact every expat living in Costa Rica. I'd venture to say that nearly all expats living here in Costa Rica have at least one corporation or S. A. which is the acronym for Sociedad Anonima. If this law is taken at face value, there needs to be a form 5471 filled out for each corporation owned. Many expats that I know own several S. A.s.

There is good reason to take this question seriously as there appear to be some rather dire penalties:
"Every U.S. person must furnish information annually with respect to any foreign corporation which that person controls. Additionally, every U.S. citizen or resident must file an information return if he or she becomes a 10 percent shareholder in a foreign corporation during the year, and/or if he or she becomes an officer or director of a foreign corporation in which a U.S. person is a 10 percent shareholder. The form the IRS has prescribed for such returns is Form 5471, Information Return of U.S. Persons with Respect to Certain Foreign "

We are working on getting a good understanding of this RCH99. I'll post what I find here. Please let me know what you find as well.

Pretty interesting stuff about Panama. I think that we may need to find a new planet.

"Everyone living in Panama needs to be aware of the new law #71 that is being proposed. Please find below a translation of a review that was done by a prominent Panamanian attorney that addresses the major elements of the new law. This has been reviewed by Bocas del Toro Realty's team of attorneys and it is accurate. Read it and weep – it is a travesty and in effect tosses property rights to the wind. If this passes it will have tremendous negative impact on Panama and cause hundreds of thousands of locals and foreigners across the country to lose their rights. Read the information and do the best you can to let people know about this. Chester Kroeger is helping raise money to send people to Panama to protest at the National Assembly to be held THIS Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday(!) Please contact him to see how you can help."