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(506) 2223-1327              Published Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2010,  in Vol. 10, No. 161     E-mail us
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Tax police are on the move in search of violators
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

Costa Rican tax collectors are in the middle of what they call an aggressive plan of control.

Some 32 businesses already have been shut because operators did not conform to rules set down by the Dirección General de Tributación. The businesses ranged from restaurants and bars to a lawyer's office that were shut down during the last week, the tax collecting agency said.

The focus of the effort seems to be retail establishments that fail to provide the correct factura. However, professionals are guilty of this also.

Inspectors also are checking to see that sales tax has been paid and other documents have been presented, said the agency.

The agency intensified its oversight effort because the Día de la Madre was Sunday, and this results in increased retail sales. Closings took place all over the country, said Francisco Fonseca,  director general of Tributación.

The violations included failing to provide customers with formal facturas, failing to provide comprobantes showing that customers paid admission where applicable or other bookkeeping flaws.

The agency periodically embarks on such campaigns. The timing of the current effort comes as more tax bills are being presented to the legislature.

Tributación faces an uphill battle. A number of businesses maintain two sets of books, one for the tax collector and the other reflecting the actual income.

If a restaurant owner can avoid putting a sale in a system available to the tax collector, he or she is able to split the 13 percent sales tax with the customers.
tax man cometh

Some stores in Quepos call this the resident's  discount. The practice is also very much alive at stores where appliances and furniture are sold. A $1,000 retail sale is supposed to generate $130 in taxes.

Several years ago Tributación ran a raffle in which consumers were invited to enter by turning facturas over to the tax collectors. Some prizes were awarded, but the main reason was so that Tributación could examine the facturas to make sure the company was registered as a taxpayer and that the document met all the legal qualifications.

At the end of the year, taxpayers are supposed to list major payments and purchases and also money they have received. Professionals like lawyers and physicians are notorious for taking money from clients or patients under the table, so the Tributación system is designed to catch those who file faulty tax returns.

The tax situation is going to get even more complex.

The Chinchilla administration seeks a value-added tax that generates a levy at every step of the production and sales process.


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San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2010, Vol. 10, No. 161

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Bodies found after party
in upscale Escazú condo

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

A party at a Guachipelín, Escazú, condo ended in a double murder late Sunday or early Monday.

A guard found the body of a man, the presumed occupant of the condo, wrapped in a sheet in the passenger section of a car at the Cerro Alto condos. Later investigation disclosed the body of a man about 22 in the trunk. He died from multiple stab wounds and showed defensive cuts on his arms.

The Judicial Investigating Organization has yet to release names of the victims. Both are believed to be foreign but not North Aemrican. The older dead man was said to be a close friend of a Canadian who is out of the country.

A guard at the complex said that the occupant of the condo hosted a party Sunday night.


Senior complaints invited
over treatment on buses


By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

The nation's regulatory agency is inviting complaints from seniors who have been treated badly on buses.

The Autoridad Reguladora de los Servicios Públicos pointed out that seniors over the age of 65 are supposed to get preferential tratment on buses. On trips of 25 kms or less, they ride free. On trips of from 25 to 50 kms, seniors pay half. They pay 75 percent of the fare on trips over 50 kms, said the agency.

In the past, the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social issued tickets to seniors. Now they are asked to present their cédula to the driver.

The Defensoría de los Habitantes. has received complaints from seniors that drivers have kept the cédula or otherwise treated them badly. Jo Stuart in her column Friday recounted rude treatment to her by a bus driver.

Anyone who files a complaint with the reguladora should include names and contact information for witnesses, too, the agency said. A free informational number is  8000-273737.


Our readers' opinions
Costa Rica is hypocritical
in contesting Arizona law


Dear A.M. Costa Rica:

After reading the many comments by your readers in defense of Arizona's new law on checking for illegal immigrants, I'd say they hit it right on the nailhead. You only need to read your Page 1 story of 64 persons detained at 94 police checkpoints here to realize the truth that it is far more prevalent here and without the police needing probable cause.

Judging from the results, it was needed, just as the probable cause is needed in Arizona where my friends from Tucson tell me the Mexican drug cartels coming over the borders are causing terrible crime rates. To think that the Costa Rica government had the audacity to file a formal complaint against the Arizona law.!!
Julia Green
Paraiso and
proud to be from Arizona

A.M. Costa Rica reports
crimes to alert public


Dear A.M. Costa Rica:

Please add my name to the like of Bill Pitts and others who have applauded your courage in reporting about the types and levels of criminal activity in Costa Rica.

Very few people, I believe, approve of these activities; yet, also, very few stand up to increase awareness of crime in Costa Rica.  This includes locals as well as foreigners.

Let's face it, most criminals do crimes so that they can "eat," not because they want fun. This food could be in form of money or goods.  They also believe that it is safer to "eat" at the expense of foreigners who will go back home and move on.  Yet, if push comes to shove, then they will take from locals any day.

A.M. Costa Rica is very courageous because of the strength of vested interests that do all they can to hide this information.  Well, I guess the vested interests have to "eat" too?

If the amount of criminal activity in Costa Rica was spread out over a country 10 times as large, this would tend to decrease its significance.  But when this criminal activity is condensed down to a land area the size of Costa Rica, then its importance magnifies many times.  This is a huge problem for your government and will soon spill over to more and more "locals," unless it is dealt with effectively.

Thank you A.M. Costa Rica.
Dave Carr
Miami, Florida

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San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2010, Vol. 10, No. 161

university budgets
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Unviersity march today is a test of Chinchilla administration
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

There is much more going on today than a march by students and professors in search of a bigger budget. The march, orchestrated by the rectors of the public universities, is a challenge to the Chinchilla administration, a test of will.

That is why the march is being supported by the far left Frente Amplio and the Asociación Nacional de Empleados Públicos y Privados.

Frente Amplio, which has a single representative in the legislature has called on the marchers to defend the public universities and suggested in a communicado that the goal of the administration was to privatize public education even to the extent that students and their families might be made to pay for their university classes.

Both Frente Amplio and the Asociación Nacional de Empleados Públicos y Privados. have called for a restructuring of the tax system to eliminate evasion.

Frente Amplio and many of the university personnel involved say that the government is in the process of reducing the money paid to a special fund that supports the four public universities.

Not so, said four government ministers in a statement issued through the Ministerio de Hacienda. They said the government proposes to increase the money available for higher public education by 4.5 percent in real terms plus inflation. As has been reported, the rectors of the four universities want an 11 percent annual increase.
Leonardo Garnier Rímolo of Educación Pública, Clotilde Fonseca Quesada of Ciencia y Tecnología, Fernando Herrero Acosta of Hacienda and Laura Alfaro Maykall of Planificación. They also released a graph that showed a 2010 budget of 226,000,000 colons or about $450 million and an anticipated 2015 budget of 298,438,000 colons or $593 million.

The four universities involved are the Universidad de Costa Rica based in San Pedro, the Universidad Nacional in Heredia, the Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica based in Cartago and the Universidad Estatal a Distancia.

There was a march last week in Heredia.

The rectors of the various schools have given staff and students leave to participate in the march and encouraged their participation. In San Pedro it will begin at 9 a.m. and head to Casa Presidencial. Yamileth González Garcia, rector of the Universidad de Costa Rica, said that she and her colleagues expected to speak with President Laura Chinchilla after the march. Ms. Chinchilla has been deliberately staying out of the negotiations, leaving them to her ministers.

To some extent, she will receive some support from the marchers because she is in the process of pushing a tax reform package through the legislature. Among other proposals, there is a value-added tax that is designed to greatly increase government income.

An agreement could be negotiated so that the universities support the tax package in exchange for a budget increase.


Sala IV throws out permit issued to gasoline station
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

Even though the environment ministry and the Municipalidad de Alajuela approved the plan, the Sala IV struck down the construction of a gas station because there had been no study by the Ministerio de Salud. The gas station already is built but not in operation.

The cases were brought by residents. One with the last names of Alfaro Sala questioned the permission granted by the Ministerio de Ambiente, Energía y Telecomunicaciones. He also filed against the municipality.

A woman with the last names of Saborío Elizondo said that the zoning of the area did not permit such a use and that the
station was too close to the local hospital and a company that stored grain. Grain can explode in a fire, and there is a regulation prohibiting a gasoline station within 100 meters of a hospital. The site is near Mall Internacional.

The environment ministry has an entire section that is supposed to regulate the location of gasoline stations and other operations involving fuel.  It is the Dirección General de Transporte y Comercialización de Combustible.

The ministry and the municipality were sentenced to pay for the costs and damage as a result of the case. The decision did not make clear if the builder of the gas station would be compensated, too, because of the faulty approval by the municipality and the ministry.


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San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2010, Vol. 10, No. 161


San Pedro man among survivors of miracle airline crash

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
and wire services reports

A passenger jet with 130 aboard sustained a lightning strike when it was some 200 feet above the airstrip at San Andres, the Colombian island in the Caribbean.

The plane fell to earth and broke into three pieces. Officials are calling the mishap a miracle because there was only one fatality. A Colombian woman, Amar Fernández de Barreto, had a heart attack, according to wire reports.

The Colombian-based Aires jetliner crashed early Monday morning short of the runway on the Caribbean resort island. The Boeing 737-700 was on a trip from Bogota.
The Ministero de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto in San José said that at least one Costa Rican on the flight was not badly injured. He was identified as Carlos Pedreros Perdreros, a naturalized Costa Rican of Colombian origin. He runs a beauty shop in San Pedro. He was in the  Hospital Amor de Patria, according to Antonio Alarcón a Costa Rican diplomat on the island, said the ministry.

Monday was a holiday in Colombia, and getting more information was difficult. 

The ministry said that Choly Valeria Marles, originally thought to be Costa Rican turned out to be Colombian.

The crash closed the only runway on the resort island.


Ms. Chinchilla ives her plan
Casa Presidencial photo
President Laura Chinchilla presents her goals in front of a screen carrying an outline

Ms. Chinchilla restates her goals at the 100-day mark

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

Laura Chinchilla presented the goals of her administration Monday night in a public session at the Museo de los Niños in an effort to change the public opinion that her government is drifting.

There were no new revelations but a summary of what has been accomplished the first 100 days of her administration and what she plans to accomplish.

She is counting on new taxes to support most of these efforts.

She restated her hope to make Costa Rica the first developed country in Latin America with 100 percent renewable energy and carbon dioxide neutral. She also said she expects:

• an economic growth rate of from 5 to 6 percent a year and improvements in the indexes of competitivity;

• a reduction in the unemployment figure to 5 percent by 2014;

• a reduction in the rate of increase in violent crime;

* some 95 percent of the electrical energy from renewal sources and advances toward carbon neutrality by 2014.

The obstacles she said she sees are low productivity, an increase in economic inequality, a difficulty in making prompt decisions, and fiscal restrictions.
Among the 2014 goals are help for some 20,000 families in extreme poverty, help from some 40 vulnerable communities and a 75 percent increase in coverage for some 15,000 children and a 50 percent increase in coverage of some 2,500 adults in the national care network.  There is some $90 million earmarked for this in a trust.

She also wants to enforce the minimum salaries and have 85 percent of the schools connected to the Internet in 2014, up from 50 percent now. She also seeks 150 new local clinics and 700 more specialists. And the 20,000 very poor families will get housing.

She also restated her goal of hiring 4,000 more police and supporting citizen security with a casino tax and a tax on corporations or sociedades anónimas. She also is counting on an integrated security policy developed through the U.N. development program and its survey of citizens.

She also wants to create 3,000 new prison cells via an international development bank loan and bring law and order to some 40 areas that now are considered high risk.

She also said she will continue the effort to make Costa Rica a bilingual or multilingual country.

Economically Ms. Chinchilla said she hopes to boost exports to $17 billion a year and to win approval of the trade treaties with the People's Republic and Singapore as well as the accord with the European Union. There also is the $1 billion investment in the Limón-Moín ports. A meeting of possible concession bidders is this month.


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San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2010, Vol. 10, No. 161

Medical vacations in Costa Rica

Chávez political buzz words
are difficult to define


By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services

For years, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has described his program of boosting state control over the economy as "21st century socialism,"  The president does not spell out how this version of socialism differs from 20th century socialist experiments in other countries, or from classical Marxism.  Many Venezuelans have only a vague idea of what "21st century socialism" means.

"I do not really know what his form of socialism is.  I do not understand it.  It must be something he invented," says one retiree.

Ask ordinary Venezuelans for a definition of 21st century socialism, and some are at a loss for words.

"I do not know a precise word.  I know it has helped me," says a disabled woman.  "Some say socialism means assistance, protection, that sort of thing."

President Chávez defines his program in generalized terms.

"This nation belongs to everyone," he said. "It is everyone's property. And that property must be distributed equally, in harmony."

He ties his socialist ideals to Christianity.

"Christ cared about the poor, not the rich," he said.  "Christ said: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.  Blessed are the poor."

Among Venezuelans who say they understand the meaning of 21st century socialism, most define it in relation to their own political beliefs.

"Equal earnings, everyone living at the same level," said a chef.  "Living well, with wealth distributed equally among the people."

"21st century socialism: a pretty way to say communism.  That is all it is," said Leslie Contreras, a Caracas clothing designer.  "Everyone ends up the same.  The rich leave and the middle class becomes poorer."

President Chávez has been intentionally vague in defining the term, allowing him to mold the concept to fit the rhetorical need of the moment, according to political analyst Luis Vicente Leon, who adds that few Venezuelans spend time pondering political terminology as long as their needs are met.

"What do Venezuelans care about?  That they have food, health care, medicine, and services," he said.  "They do not care how it is provided, just that they have it."

Chávez-backers note that 21st century socialism is in its infancy.

"It is a work in progress," said one man.  "We are on the path to socialism, to greater equality among Venezuelans."

But economist Orlando Ochoa says a day will come when the concept implodes.

"Twenty-first century socialism is an attempt to revive 20th century Marxist socialism, financed by oil money," he said. "Some people see it as humanism, cooperation, and social investment, the way the government portrays it.  The gulf between reality and perception will have to be bridged."

Until then, whether anyone can define it or not, the term remains the daily bread of Venezuela's political diet.
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San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2010, Vol. 10, No. 161


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Robber, 17, dies at scene
of Cartago stickup

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

Two men on a motorcycle pulled up and the passenger jumped off and tried to rob a lottery vendor at his stand in Cartago Monday.

The vendor, identified by the Judicial Investigating Organization by the last name of Fuentes, resisted. One of the robbers shot him twice in the chest. He survived.  He is 55.

The robber on foot jumped back on the motorcycle, but for some reason the driver turned and fired one more time, perhaps with the intent of hitting the vendor. Instead the 17 year old who was a passenger took a bullet in the chest and fell to the roadway. His helmet rolled away and a pistol came to rest nearby. He was dead at the scene. The incident took place near the municipal market.

Investigators said they had a good idea of the identity of the motorcycle driver.


Intel buys cable modem line

Special to A.M. Costa Rica

Intel Corp. announced Monday it has signed an agreement to acquire Texas Instruments' cable modem product line. The purchase enhances Intel's focus on the cable industry and related consumer electronics market segments, where the company's expertise in building advanced system-on-chip products, based on Intel Atom processors, will be applied, it said.

France asked to repay money
Haiti was forced to give

By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services

An international group of writers and academics is calling on France to reimburse Haiti $21 billion that the Caribbean nation was forced to pay to secure its independence 200 years ago.

The group, which includes journalists and members of the European parliament, made the appeal to French President Nicolas Sarkozy in an open letter published Monday in the French newspaper Liberation.

American linguist Noam Chomsky and other signatories said France should repay Haiti's independence debt in light of the former French colony's urgent need to recover from a devastating earthquake in January. They called the 19th century payment demand by French slave owners seeking compensation patently illegitimate and illegal.

In 1825, French monarch Charles X demanded Haiti pay 150 million gold francs to French slave owners as compensation or face invasion and a restoration of slavery.





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