Banking in ajijic

viajero wrote:I hadn't lived in California for 14 years when their Tax Board confiscated four hundred plus dollars from a BoA account I had opened there years ago,one phone call and they admitted their error and sent me a refund check to my Mexican address,getting BoA to refund the One Hundred dollar fee they charged me for turning over my money to California with zero beforehand notice to me,took a bit more work..

 

Ahh someone else helped by the long tax arm of Cali.  Sounds like typical BOA to me.  BOA does respond to class action suits laugh out loud. They treat you quite differently if you are a platinum account. Lost platinum status when they killed the scocia bank ATM deal and I moved more money to CU. Now I am not platinum and it is like talking to a wall. I just use the BOA account to collect money and move it down here to Bancomer in a check so who cares....

I find it useful to have a bank account here and there.
Most of my money is in a HSBC account in Canada. I don't trust Mexican banks to have too much here. I have a goodly sum here in the HSBC in San Antonio. I pay my Telmex bill online from the HSBC here but I don't trust it for paying CFE. Right now with the Canadian dollar so low I withdraw pesos from the HSBC here as when the money went into this bank it did so at a much better rate. It is nice to have a backup for various reasons.

I am a bit confused by that......the Canadian dollar may be low against the USD but has been trading in and around 12 to 1 against the Mexican peso for 2 years now. Low of about 11.69 and high of about 12.89 during the past 24 months. Right now about 12.06 so not sure what you mean by "Right now with the Canadian dollar so low I withdraw pesos from the HSBC here as when the money went into this bank it did so at a much better rate."

The money went into the Mexican bank at 13 to the dollar from the private sale of several things including a car. Now if I withdraw money from my Canadian account I only get 11.5 to the dollar.

13 to 1.....nice. That must have been a few years ago when the canuck buck was riding high.

Okay seems smart to have most of ones funds in home country bank accounts of some sort and a small amount in a bank account in MX.  Sounds like a good idea to have a US address somehow for mail for notices of varies things. Think I'll be looking into Schwab.  Lots of good discussion on this thread with a lot of good information. Oregon is not where I will want to have an address because this state will screw me over tax wise! It has already which is why I'm moving outta here! One can't retire here unless they have a lot of money to afford all the state income taxes! I'm sick of it! Also getting out of the jury duty was not an issue for me at all the one time I was called in for it, because I pushed it out twice which you can do for work reasons, then when I was ready to go in they cancelled the trial. So I never had to go after all was said and done.  Oregon is a tough place in many respects which is why I can't wait to leave.

mattoleriver wrote:

David wrote:...Since I spend less than 31 days/year there I am a non-resident for tax purposes.

Does being "a non-resident for tax purposes" mean that you are exempt from paying Oregon state income tax?

Thanks

Yes.

Oregon is not quite what it use to be 30 years ago.  Some ways it is better now but in most ways it has evolved from an interesting place to live with some respect for the government to let me get out of here. The state tax doesn't even allow you to deduct all your Federal tax which is a tax on a tax which kinda sucks. Washington has large sales tax and medium size property tax which don't effect me unless I am visiting or having stuff shipped. Much prefer Washington but people with other situation might disagree.



It all depends....

pamarie wrote:  Oregon is a tough place in many respects which is why I can't wait to leave.

Hmm, I find it just the opposite; I was able to renew my car tags every year from here, I renewed my d/l from here, and I'm exempt from state income taxes. No problemas for me for 10 years! YMMV

Oregon works well for some people. I go to the US too often to see my family to fit into the exception. Its not that long. As you said YMMV.

I seldom go to the USA. Last year once for my brother's bday, this year nada.

I highly recommend Schwab, as others have. Since it sounds like you may need to move your IRA, that may be the best choice, since they have an Investor Checking acct. with a debit card that works perfectly with every ATM I've encountered here at Lakeside in my first full year of residency.

I found CA to be unaffordable as well and cashed out last April, changed residency to my brother's address in WA for all mailing and maintain everything else online.

I'll assume you've already got/getting your Temporal/Permanente Visa from the Mexican Consulate in the OR, if not that's a MUST DO, before moving here, much quicker and painless to accomplish stateside.

As to banking, I've had no need for MX bank, the Schwab debit card works great, they know I'm in Mexico and don't care, I call them when I need to go to the USA for whatever reason and when I return to Mx, and they refund all the ATM fees monthly.