mam521

Many of these are pretty much exactly what my Venezuelan colleagues are chatting about in office today and are essentially in agreement with what they are saying. One colleague pointed out that when the government is the cartel and vice versa, there's essentially limitless resources available. This is helped by the fact that the government cartel has been in operation for the better part of 3 decades and that usually cartels only get about 10 years or so in before something interruptive happens. They say a lot of focus is on Maduro when it should be on Flores. She's the actual commander, chief decision maker and power holder. The king and queen have been removed from the chess board, so it will be interesting to see what plays out. Oh, and I've never heard a single one of them refer to Maduro as "president". They say he is no such thing. He wasn't elected.

Many will do them in office, but it will be an out of pocket cost and that cost is often higher than if you get the vaccines in advance. Hopefully your GP, a travel clinic or supplemental insurance would help minimize that cost.

Gift, by definition, is something voluntarily transferred, without compensation. Bribe, on the other hand, is to provide something of value to persuade or influence a judgement or the conduct of a person in the position of trust. How is a required gift, voluntary? How, also, is it without compensation, if one receives a golden ticket? Under the FCPA, one is permitted to "expedite or secure the performance of a routine governmental action which is routinely and commonly performed by a foreign official" which includes processing of paperwork to obtain visas and/or paperwork to allow a person to do business in a foreign country - that's covered by the $15k application fee, but the million dollar "gift" cannot influence the decision to issue or guarantee a visa. It states on the Trump Gold Card website that a successful applicant will be vetted by DHS and will be subject to available EB-1 and EB-2 visas. USCIS falls under DHS, but DoS is a separate agency that works with DHS. Can you imagine? Pay $15k, get an I-140 approval, pay your $1mil and the DoS says "nah bruh, sorry, we're not issuing your visa". 👀 As others have said, at least an EB-5 requires some sort of capital investment as well as a business plan to prove economic benefit to the US, which seems less sketchy and probably a lot easier. I'd wager dollars to donuts the "platinum card" is a no go thus far because of the "gifting" as well as the benefit of 270 tax free days per year on foreign income while living in the US. Any non-resident alien for tax purposes, PR or citizen's foreign income has always been subject to US taxes, period. Getting past those sketchy benefits is instrumentally more challenging as it's multiple laws to challenge with those bad boy promises.

Our district's policy was pretty clear and sensible too, but we also have 72,000 kids plus teachers and not enough classroom tech available. So, they flexed and caved until the law was made. My kids are also in high school and I'd guess a 135lb, 5'4", female teacher trying to tell a 17 year old, 300lb football player to put your phone away comes with some challenges. I've talked to a couple of teachers and they say they love hearing the chatter among kids again. It was lost when everyone was devicing. Real conversations, real interactions, real relationships and interestingly, less fights it would seem.

The worry is the wording. Unrestricted and gift do not equate to taxes. Sounds like free invitation "appropriate funds for personal gain". Unrestricted or not, I wanna see where these funds are going.

Most companies would classify this as bribery, no? There's laws against that...

I wouldn't either. I don't have social media accounts set to public to protect myself as it is. If you're dumb enough to leave them open publicly, you subject yourself to too much scrutiny. I don't post ridiculous things anyway, but it's my business. I don't need an HR person rooting around in my accounts, etc, let alone the government. I'm actually annoyed that our company wants you to have a LinkedIn profile and HR do check it. To me, it's just Facebook for adults and there is nothing in my contract that states I am required to use social media on behalf of the company. I don't know about the rest of you, but we have to do yearly training on data classification and storage so we don't violate laws internationally by collecting information and mishandling it. Hubs and I work for the same company and when we got married, we only told HR, as it was a requirement for personnel profile updates, benefits and beneficiary information. We kept our work relationship professional and our personal lives at home. When my boss found out a year after we were married, she was like "why didn't you tell anybody?" and I just said it was none of anyone else's business. She knew at that moment that based on our data security policies, she couldn't say anything more than that. She could have been fired if she shared personal information that wasn't hers to share. The US, in general, is far too lackadaisical with people's personal information.

Considering how much more in depth personal data protections are in the EU and UK, I can see a lot of people pumping the brakes on a visit. It's pretty invasive and some e-mail accounts, etc are corporate owned and protected, so that information, despite being required, cannot be shared.

They technically CAN be repaired, but the cost of repair often supersedes the cost of replacement. Unless you're dealing with the limited numbers of traction drive CVT's in higher performance cars, the pulley based CVT's are all junk. It really limits the number of cost effective vehicles available on the market when you're searching for something that doesn't have a CVT, as we found out when we were looking at potentially buying something for Kid1 when she headed off to university. We had a Dieselgate Passat TDI that had the DSG transmission and it was smooth like butter. That was a really great car. Current ICE vehicles both have 8 speed transmissions with no real issues there. Both hubs and I can drive a manual transmission. The shifts with the 8 speeds are nice and smooth, but I think as a manual transmission driver, the CVT just feels wrong. The little i3 is just a different driving experience overall, being a little EV. Sophisticated go kart is the best way to describe it.

I had an AWD Corolla Cross when I was up in Canada. I chose it because it had proper Michelin tires, not Chinese knock offs that we've seen on some of the rentals and I knew the fuel mileage would be great. Conclusion: I could never buy a vehicle with a CVT transmission. The thing made a lot of noise, but was slow.

Well, our district had a policy banning phones and it was poorly implemented. Then the state government banned them and the implementation held. Unfortunately, maybe there does need to be government overreach in this instance. People are of differing opinions, but the science says this stuff is rotting our kids brains. I didn't let my kid have any social media until she was nearly 14 (I was mean for making her wait that long, apparently) but she'll tell you now, at nearly 19, that she shouldn't have had it that young. Kid2 only uses YouTube and Discord, but neither are on the Aussie ban list. My dumb(something) sister has let my niece have Snapchat since she was 10 and the kid has FB and Insta and who knows what else. My niece just turned 13...way too young but my sister is like "oh it's fine". Too many people like my sister out there.

It's not a bad thing, honestly. The banning of phones in the schools in TX has been pretty much all positive. Students will reluctantly admit it. Teachers like hearing kids actually converse. Maybe the next generation won't be so anxiety riddled and lacking in interpersonal skills with these types of bans.

You will have to call Telus Health and ask. We had our appointments a week before our interviews and we had our medical packets in hand with no issue, but a number of those timelines have changed.

Just remember, when you endorse that visa, you become a permanent resident of the US and are then subject to US taxes. If you sell your home after endorsement, for example, the capital gains are subject to US taxes. It is advisable to try to close out your affairs and endorse prior to the expiration. At the very least, seek guidance from a cross border accountant.

Agree with Dashinka. They won't do it because it will impact income tax generation. The rest of the details will also impact it but bottom line, dualies living abroad or even dualies living in the US that may decide to reside or retire elsewhere would laugh at not having to file US income tax and/or pay taxes. Not everyone has aspirations to be Moreno or Cruz.