Natural births in Spain

Interesting thing I learned today is that if you want to do a natural birth (non-induced, non-c section, non-epidural, etc), stay away from the private medical system.

In the US, doctors generally work in teams, so if your birth takes 20 hours, then you might have a different doctor for the birth than your usual one. Usually they try to introduce you to the other doctors in the practice during the pregnancy so that the doctor doing the birth isn't a complete stranger.

Here, private doctors don't work in teams, so unless the doctor wants to stick around for 20 hours (unlikely), it's going to be wham-bam thank you ma'am, slap the baby on the butt and I'm out of here. The Spanish populace has been trained to think that this is a good thing, since it allows you to schedule your birth, make sure the grandparents are taking care of the kids, etc.

The other problem is that doctors in the private system in Spain sometimes have an inferiority complex (the really good doctors passed the exams for the public system, and do private work on the side), and thus can be extremely arrogant. Mention the public system and you are liable to get a half hour lecture on how crappy it is and how all their equipment is inferior, etc.

The real believers (mostly Germans here it seems) in natural birth do it at home, which seems a bit risky to me.

Anyway, you've been warned.

Sources of tax advice for Americans in Spain

I'm a bit of a tax geek and have always prepared my taxes myself (except one year, and the tax preparer made a mistake and got us audited). Since both of us have a green card, it means that we need to file taxes in the US on our world (ie Spain) income. Since the US and Spain have a tax treaty, most Americans in Spain won't owe any US taxes (since rates here are higher), but you need to file anyway.

In the US system, there's a big difference between intentionally evading taxes and doing so by accident or ignorance. (The joke being that the difference is approximately five years in jail.) For this reason, elaborate structures designed to evade taxes are quite dangerous, because they show that the tax payer was obviously aware of the rules and tried to evade them. In contrast, someone like Tim "TurboTax ate my taxes" Geithner can become treasury secretary (which runs the IRS), despite "forgetting" to pay 32K in taxes because he claimed that TurboTax didn't to warn him he was making a mistake.

An extremely good resource for me has been an outfit called Offshore Press, which has a number of very well research e-books that approach the issue from the perspective of someone who wants to comply with the rules. They are not trying to sell some magic package that will hide your money from the IRS.

My conclusion so far:

• Generally don't buy non-US mutual funds. US based funds are much more tax efficient and provide you with all the paperwork you need to file. The only exception are funds that qualify for Qualified Electing Fund treatment, and the only ones I've seen that do that are a couple Canadian funds.
  
• Managed accounts (where you get the buy/sell records of each stock) and stocks are usually ok. Finding a broker that will deal with US persons is another matter.
  
• Before you buy insurance or annuities, read about the 1% Federal Excise Tax. It appears that Spain has a tax treaty exemption for some kinds of insurance, but you need to file an 8833 form to claim this exception.
  
• Foreign trusts, corporations, etc are generally more trouble than they are worth. It's unlikely to legally save you much in taxes, and if you want to just not pay, then it's better not to try too hard.
  
• Variable annuities seem to be to only moderately attractive foreign investment (but be careful about the Excise Tax).
  
• Buying non-US dollar bonds at a discount to face value can have unexpected tax implication.
  
• Buying/selling any capital asset means paying capital gains on the cost/proceeds converted in US dollars. This includes houses, stocks, bonds, etc.
  
• Tax advisers are a double edged sword: on one hand, if they give you an opinion and you rely on it and do something illegal, you generally avoid "intent" and won't go to jail. On the other hand, all your communications with the tax advisor can be subpoenaed by the IRS.
  
• File your FBAR (separate from your return) if you have more than $10,000 in accounts outside the US. The penalties are extreme, even for non-willful omissions. The US has had access to the SWIFT system used for interbank transfers for years (in the name of fighting terror and drugs of course), so don't think you can keep a secret.
  
• Try your best, but you will never be perfect. With 16,845 pages of the US tax code, you're probably breaking some rule.
  

Pepé Pagapoco y hoy tampoco

The title of a kids story yesterday I heard on the Radio 5 yesterday about a man that never pays for anything. The kids loved it and it was very well told by Esther de Lorenzo (and I think it's an original story, since I can't find much in Google about it).

The villagers eventually lose patience with Pepe Paga Poco and decide to cast a magic spell that makes anything that he takes without paying grow legs and run back home. He eventually becomes desperate and goes to the bank and tells them to pay for everything (and becames Pepe Pagatodo).

Link to the MP3.

Laporta 2010

Laporta spins a fairly unconvincing study he commissioned as being an endorsement of a separate state for Catalunya. Only 47% of the people were in favor of their "own state", which is pretty low considering that he was able to set the wording of the question.

One interesting result from the study was that 38% of people consider themselves equally Catalan and Spanish. 26% were more Catalan than Spanish, and 6% more Spanish than Catalan. Only 27% considered themselves exclusively Spanish or exclusively Catalan.

This means that 70% of the population considers their cultural identity a mix between Catalan and Spanish.

That pretty much matches my experience, where conversations in groups of natives tend to switch back and forth between Catalan and Spanish, depending on what the speaker is most comfortable in or the language friends got to know each other in.

In any case, so far there's little danger of Laporta endangering CiU's march toward supremacy in the next election (according to La Vanguardia):

Catalan and parking fines

Article 138 of the traffic act mandates that written directions of traffic signs be written at a minimum in Castilian.

Las indicaciones escritas que se incluyan o acompañen a los paneles de señalización de las vías públicas, e inscripciones, figurarán en idioma castellano y, además, en la lengua oficial de la comunidad autónoma reconocida en el respectivo estatuto de autonomía, cuando la señal esté ubicada en el ámbito territorial de dicha comunidad.

The information written to include or accompany the marking of roads, and inscriptions, shall appear in Castilian and also in the official language of the autonomous community according to the statute of autonomy, when the sign is located in the territory of that community.

According to the right wing newspaper ABC (which always writes these kind of stories in a very gloating tone), Barcelona city council is annulling any fines that are appealed for linguistic reasons. (I assume this is to avoid losing in court and establishing a precedent)

This is especially handy in downtown Sant Cugat, since this means I no longer have to worry about getting tickets with my shortcuts through no entry "excepte veïns" zones.

Strange product promotions

Something I love here is weird product promotions.

Yesterday two caught my eye:

1) Receive a free kitchen lighter with your purchase of a cheese

2) Receive a free comforter with a purchase of 7 euros of chorizo.