My wife and I had been planning on buying a home in either Belize or Costa Rica but gave up this plans because of FACTA. Too bad because I really like Central America and was looking forward to a major lifestyle change from integrating into a local rural community.<p>Really a messed up law and messed up policy.<p>I do understand why our government did it: not good for the economy to have older people spend their social security money in a relatively inexpensive foreign country. I think the money laundering and anti terrorism arguments may just be a smokescreen. This may also be just our government throwing their weight around, bullying other countries.