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Neg - It's wicked easy to get a social in this country. Ask just about any serious criminal and I bet they will be able to direct you to an appropriate ehrm... entreprenuer. Remember how often we see identity theft occur, where the identity stolen is from a dead person. Sick but true.
Neg: You should have come and lived in good old England! Five minutes and you would both have EU passports (although you probably had one anyway!), be on the NHS and have a National Insurance number (same as Social Security Number in the US). :)
Neg: As far as I know you start with crappy credit. We have several h1b workers here in the company and they could not get credit cards for the longest time because they have no credit history. (Even when they could show that they had paid rent and other bills faithfully for over a year) One of my friends just got his first credit card. (After 3 years of having a pay first then buy credit card)Quote:
Originally posted here by Negative
We filed all the paperwork (and it's a bunch, trust me... not to mention the legal fees). The first thing they'll give me (didn't get it yet) is a taxpayer ID (figures... first the taxes, then the good stuff). Then in about a month or so I should get my social. Right now, I'm not allowed to leave the country (welp... I'm allowed to leave, but not to come back) - I'll need a travel permission for that (should have that in three months or so). And then in about a year, me and Melissa will have to go take an interview and prove that we got married out of love, and not because I'm a communist trying to infiltrate the American establishment. And then in like three years or so, I'll be an American citizen.
I wonder how they are going to rate my credit... does everybody start with the same credit rate?
It's a good thing that we don't like credit cards, I guess :)
We put a lot of money down on our house (that was the only way to get it, since I don't have a credit score and can't get a loan), and we live by the principle of "only buy what you can pay in cash for".
There was an interesting article in 2600 a couple of issues ago about this guy who managed to get everything he wanted (utilities included) without ever giving out his social security number. I should dig it up again.
Pwaring:
Or I could have stayed in Belgium, where everybody gets free complete medical coverage, free education, 35-hour weeks with at least 4 weeks paid off per year, and you get to take up to five years paid off during your carreer (which I'm doing right now... it's not the full amount, but it's still good pay). Of course, income taxes are way higher (to cover all that free stuff), but property taxes are way lower.
I'm a little bored, so I decided to do an "income" comparison between the Belgian system (where income taxes are probably the highest in the world), and America, for comparable situations. I may have missed some stuff, so feel free to corect me :)
Belgium
$3,000 base pay
30% income taxes (included: retirement plan, social)
= $2,100 net pay = $25,200 per year.
In Belgium, everybody gets an extra paycheck in June or July, and an extra one in December. Add 2 times $2,100 to the $25,200, and you get a net pay of $29,400 (according to the CIA, the GDP per capita is around $29,200 per year, so I'm pretty close).
Cost of living is about the same (maybe a little higher).
For an average size property, you pay about $1,000 in taxes every year.
City taxes are around $200 per year.
$29,400 per year minus $1,000 minus $200 leaves $28,200 per year.
You'd have to work around 1,575 hours per year for that amount.
That makes $17.9 per hour.
The day you retire, you keep getting the same paycheck for the rest of your life.
America
$3,500 base pay
10% income taxes + 5% insurance (no retirement plan)
= $2,975 net pay = $35,700 per year (again, according to the CIA, the GDP per capita is around $36,300 per year).
For an average size property, you pay around $500 in taxes every month (property taxes, city taxes,...).
$35,700 per year minus $6,000 (12 times $500) leaves $29,700 per year.
Add to that that a lot of Americans have to pay off a ridiculous amount of student loans.
For that amount, you'd have to work at least 1,800 hours per year. Pay per hour: $16.5.
There, that's my answer to people who think Belgium has ridiculously high income taxes ;)
Nagative, I am an American naturalized citizen born into the family of a hard working, card carrying union member of a factory. But I understand the frustration to become a citizen, it was hard before 9/11 and I would guess extremely hard now. It was an issue even renewing my drivers license last time. The fact is there is big business in marrying Americans for citizenships. I don't think the government wants to prove you are not a communist. Lol, in fact these days communist ideals seem to be in vogue here.
Another thing you can do with low credit is get a stupid loan for a couple hundred for something, like a TV and then suck it up and make the payments and never be late. Then when that loan gets on the sheet, after a couple of month apply with one of the national cut throat cards, like Capitol One. They are rip offs but keep a decent and manageable balance on it and make payments until you get a decent score. You do realize that without a SSN getting credit is impossible, that is the basis for your file. This thing works both ways. I lived in the EU for years and could barely muster enough to get any kind of loan without being a member of the Union. I had perfect credit and always had to get cash advances off my Visa to work around it.
Depending on the state you may be entitled to a free credit report once a year from the major reporting bureaus. This reminds me, if you go the route and get a loan for a TV or DVD player make sure the company reports, otherwise you are wasting time. Not everyone reports. But Texas may have a law the requires bureaus to provide you a free credit report once a year and in some cases, EVERYTIME you get turned down for a loan. You have got to have a SSN though, it's required to my knowledge. Don't remember if anyone mentioned but those entities are Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian.
Many people here have often stated opinion that ID theft is out of control and things should be done to stop it. Guess you are experiencing some of those side effects? Be leery of the sites trying to get money for credit reports, go directly to each one and not some 3rd party unless it’s reputable. Here are the numbers to each http://www.consumer.gov/idtheft/recovering_idt.html#9 Well it looks like Texas may not be a free state. Colorado is. :)
Thanks for that info, RoadClosed.
On one of the application papers, there was a statement saying "I hereby state that I have never been a member of the Communist Party". Maybe a remainder from the Cold War, but I still had to sign for it ;)Quote:
I don't think the government wants to prove you are not a communist. Lol, in fact these days communist ideals seem to be in vogue here.
Negative: are you sure you pay $500 a month in property taxes and that isn't based on the entire year? I pay $850 a YEAR and I live in what around here is considered a very high tax. Poperty taxes also change and are reassesed every so often.
We pay a little over $400 in real estate taxes. And yups, that's monthly :)
WOW. I saw some unconfirmed figures in 1999 that place propery tax at $1.50 for every $100 assesed. I say unfonfirmed because that may have been and average over all different types of property, I am not sure. That would make your house worth well over half a million dollars? I am curious now. You realize your comparisson between Belgium and the USA is very loose. For instance my bro paid 110k for a huge 4000 sq. ft. house in Ohio a few years ago and paid hardly nothing in property taxes. That would toss your equation way off. :) But you have to make the comparisson comparable to your own life, and not mine or his. ;)
FYI the state tax code on property. http://www.window.state.tx.us/taxinf...c02/index.html
It's not a half a million dollar house ;)
I guess property taxes differ from city/state to city/state. We pay 2.78% property taxes (.56% to the city, 1.87% to the school disctrict, .34% to the county).
So yups, I do realize that my little comparison is probably a little off, but I bet it's pretty close to the truth ;)