Minerva909
Nov 20, 2011, 9:51 PM
Post #6 of 6
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Re: [La Isla] The World's Best Retirement Havens
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When I moved to the USA from Sweden in 1981 US seemed a heaven without bureaucracy. Getting a work permit both for myself and for my spouse was a child's play...though we got two different visas: I as a research fellow at Stanford got an academic visa, while he as an electronic guru (wih several world patents despite young age) got a regular work permit almost instantaneously.
We got permanent residency for the whole family within a year and with no hassle - we did not even have to wait in line at the INS office: Erik's employer's attorney got us to the front of the line within less than 5 minutes. But many years later, when my daughter "imported" a hubby from Sweden, we got him a permanent residence permit without hassles and without an attorney.
None of our Scandinavian friends in US ever complained of having any troubles with bureaucracy here. Granted, they are all university graduates with specialties in which there are shortages among Americans, so they get a red carpet treatment from INS. Us bureaucracy is usually simple and straightforward.
Filing taxes in the USA was a real joy after Sweden: not only were they unbelievably low, there was also no need to document nearly anything unless you got audited (and I did: I volunteered an information that we had a bank account in Sweden and most likely some undereducated IRS agent interpreted it as a Swiss bank account and audited us),but even that was easy - I was so used from Europe to document all expenses, it turned out my expenses were in order, but I overlooked some deductions, not used to them, so we actually got an additional refund after that audit.
USA is easy. Actually, all north and central European countries, although more bureaucratic than USA, are less and a lot less bureaucratic than Spain... and former Spanish colonies. ( I forgot to mention I also lived in Costa Rica)
The biggest hassle with bureaucracy in US was to renew a driver's license in Georgia, where idiot local bureaucrats decided a couple of years ago to harass foreigners and enacted a law, that all foreigners had to renew their drivers licenses ANNUALLY and IN PERSON, forgetting that Georgia had not only agricultural immigrants from Mexico and Guatemala, but also higly skilled immigrants from Europe and Asia, like the majority of scientists at CDC ( Center for Disease Control), without whom many Americans would lose their jobs, so when we - and our employers protested, this antiimmigrant idiocy in Georgia became shortlived.
P.S. USA is not a country where any sane European would want to retire (unless he/she children and grandchildren living in the USA and wanted to stay close to them): US so called health "benefits" like Medicare or Medigap are both pitiful and outrageously expensive comparing with Europe and accesibility of good, inexpensive health care is usually important to retirees.
(This post was edited by Minerva909 on Nov 20, 2011, 10:11 PM)
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