Midnight Express

Making sure I don't go to Costa Rican jail!

There are movies about people getting in trouble in a foreign country and being thrown in that country’s jail. Midnight Express and Brokedown Palace come to mind. Ok, that trouble was for smuggling drugs, but still.

For me, moving to a foreign country and running a business, I was deathly afraid of doing something wrong and getting thrown in a Costa Rican jail. Me? In jail? Not see my kids or family again? Oh, heck no.

Jail? Not for me!

So, anything we did, my first thought was, ‘Am I doing this right?’. My mantra became ‘I’m not going to Costa Rican jail’.

I wasn’t sure how lenient the government would be with little ole me begging for forgiveness for any ‘oversight’ of one thing or another, so I vowed to have no oversights. This of course was more challenging sometimes than I thought.

TAXES

When we were doing our due diligence prior to buying the hotel, Mark was asking Gomer (the previous owner) a lot of questions about his Costa Rica income tax returns. Gomer just laughed and responded that “all my friends in San Jose can’t believe I pay taxes at all.” Huh?!

Oh, heck no. I’ll report and pay whatever I’m supposed to pay (and more if needed) because I’m not going to Costa Rican jail.

REGULATIONS

Within the first weeks of owning the hotel, a government official arrived unannounced and told AJ (our manager) that he needed to interview all the employees. Random? A government person just showing up to this little hotel on the top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere to interview all the employees? For what? I had no idea. 

I asked AJ what it was for, and he told me that this was just ‘standard procedure’. Oh ok, standard procedure for what? Dunno. As I lurked around during these one-on-one private government interviews, I secretly was looking for a place that I could run and hide. You know- in case there was some oversight on my part, and I’d go to Costa Rican jail!

Wouldn’t you look for a place to hide?

The government official finished the interviews, told me ‘Thank you’, and left. I was spared. Spared from what? Who knows?!? But at least I wasn’t going to jail!

PAYROLL

Although we didn’t have any previous hotel experience, I had experience in payroll processing and employee benefits, so I assumed setting up the payroll for our team the first time would be a walk in the park. Nope.

Costa Rica’s social security system includes national health care and other employee benefits (maternity, pension, and disability). To pay for these programs, employers withhold a percentage from monthly salaries, and the employer also pays a percentage into the system for each worker. I knew this because we had read the books. I knew about this, but how it actually worked, I had no idea.

Gomer’s stepdaughter who was responsible for the payroll before, called to remind me that with each payroll I needed to withhold the employee’s share of the mandated benefits. I asked her for the percentage, and she gave me a number. Suspicious, I asked AJ if he knew what the employee withholding percentage was. He gave me a number. Did I believe these 2 people I barely knew? Then, my mantra crossed my mind, “no oversights, I’m not going to jail”.

I googled the Costa Rican social security agency website. Guess what? I couldn’t read a thing. Have you ever tried getting information from a government website in your own language? It’s very difficult right? Now take that level of confusion and put it all in a language you can’t read very well. That was me. Ugh. No help.

I told Mark again that, I wasn’t going to Costa Rican jail, and he suggested I contact our Costa Rican attorney. Our attorney confirmed the correct amount and sent me more information. Phew, oversight averted, and jail time spared again!

INSURANCE

As with any business, we had several insurance needs. We had to insure the property and its contents (this would prove to be invaluable later!) and we had to cover our staff for possible work-related injuries. Mark and I went to San Jose to meet with our insurance agent. Luckily, he spoke English and helped us. He also informed us that we would have to file monthly reports for each worker. For what? Dunno. But mantra ready, “I’m not going to Costa Rican jail”, I was willing to do whatever reporting I needed to do.

So, while at the San Jose office, with my trusty new Apple MacBook, the insurance agent set me up in a room with one of his associates, Jonaton, who was to show me how to do the monthly planilla reporting. Ok, planilla. What is that, you ask? Dunno, but I’m not going to Costa Rican jail, so call it whatever you want and show me how to do it!

Mark left to run an errand. What, now? With me and my limited Spanish, and Jonaton and his limited English, stuck in this non-air conditioned room trying to communicate about a planilla and something about insurance? WTF?!

Remember my debacle with the housekeepers and my limited Spanish for hotel words? My additional Spanish classes would have had to advance me to ‘native speaking’ level IMMEDIATELY because I needed to know NOW the advanced Spanish words for ‘worker’s comp, insurance reimbursement and invoice’. Shit.

I was willing to ignore all that as long as I could concentrate on what Jonaton was trying to tell me, so that I would not go to Costa Rican jail! I decided in that moment that was my priority. Whatever I didn’t understand about what I was doing and why I was doing it, was overshadowed by how to do it (whatever “it” was).

Then Jonaton told me I’d have to do all the functions manually because the Costa Rican system for this ‘thing’ he was trying to teach me, didn’t work with the Mac OS system. I almost died.

What? Jonaton!

Ok…then, Jonaton…let’s go STEP BY STEP, and you show me which actual buttons I need to press to do each part. God forbid something would change some time in the future, I would be screwed, and risk going to Costa Rican jail! We went STEP BY STEP and I wrote down exactly the words, buttons, and sections he showed me. I referred to this self-made manual for the next 62 months. No oversight here. Mantra ready, I’m not going to Costa Rican jail. Spared again!

REPORTING & PAYMENTS

In a few weeks, I’d also have to figure out how to do the reporting for the Costa Rican social security that I had withheld from employee salaries, and THEN figure out how to PAY the amounts to the social security system. Uh oh.

On the social security agency website, I found an instruction manual. Ok, great, no oversights if I could only read it! For the next 2 weeks, I tried to translate and understand the manual and wrote down all my questions. There was a ‘help-now’ number on the website, so after 2 weeks, I sat with our concierge, and she contacted the ‘help-now’ number to ask all my questions in Spanish and she translated their answers to me in English. I repeated, no oversights, no oversights, I’m not going to jail. By some miracle - which now I don’t even remember - I figured out how to do this monthly reporting and the payments so that I wouldn’t go to Costa Rican jail.

As far as I know, I did (almost) everything correctly for those 5 years. And as I sit in my Chicago home now, I sure hope I did and that I can’t be extradited back to Costa Rica for some oversight that I didn’t intend.

Maybe the government would be lenient with me, or I’d have to find my Midnight Express outta there.