Playing to Win - 038 - Immigration & Tax Advisor Shares How To Reduce Taxes By Relocation

00:00:00.000 all right guys we're live what's going on this is uh plane to win number 38 uh topic is uh lawyer

00:00:09.680 shares how to reduce taxes by relocation um to kind of frame this and i've got david waiting

00:00:16.560 in the green room area but um if you guys remember it was uh i think it was may 23rd which was about

00:00:23.040 the uh seven year anniversary of the channel and i did a plane to win broadcast just kind of uh

00:00:28.960 talking a little bit about where the channels come from and where i plan on going one of the

00:00:32.480 things i spent a lot of time on was um i'm kind of fed up with um the high taxation rate in canada

00:00:38.880 the socialist agenda the uh freezing cold winters and um somebody that knew me and david uh personally

00:00:47.600 did the introduction by email and said look you got to talk to this guy um you know he's a tax

00:00:52.560 lawyer or he was a tax lawyer i'm gonna get him to clarify that because i might be butchering that but

00:00:56.400 um he has strategies and he helps high net worth individuals uh basically top shelf men get out of

00:01:02.240 their uh countries that they're not happy uh residing in and finding a place where they're essentially

00:01:07.760 uh treated far better by uh the state and you know obviously the weather too so um i'll pull david in

00:01:15.280 here and we'll get this thing rolling david welcome how you doing great rich how are you doing yeah yeah

00:01:20.880 awesome thanks for you know carving out the time to do this um so the plan is is we'll probably do 45

00:01:27.280 minute like 45 to 60 minutes publicly on the channel um because i've got some high net worth guys in my

00:01:34.080 community i've also posted the links there and i think they've got the appetite uh to come on and ask

00:01:39.680 some private questions because i know that um you've got some time for that as well so we may switch over to

00:01:44.080 that afterwards i'm just keeping an eye on the uh private facebook group to see what the chat looks

00:01:48.800 like and uh how much uptake we have on it but judging by the uh likes on the posts that we're on

00:01:55.040 for live right now it's it's it's there so um where should we start i guess kind of like your batman

00:02:01.600 origin story is where i like to go like sure because you're originally from canada you now live in europe

00:02:07.040 um you know we kind of talked offline for a good 45 minutes about uh three weeks ago or so maybe it was

00:02:14.480 about two weeks ago you know about this uh cast that we were setting up for and we're talking about

00:02:19.120 me personally and some of the strategies but tell tell all the viewers you know why you left canada and

00:02:24.880 how you got into this line of work sure uh born and raised in windsor uh father was uh in the auto

00:02:33.120 industry as most people are in windsor uh worked uh for general motors um got out woke up in canada

00:02:40.560 went over to the states and what was quite common and it's probably common a fair number of border

00:02:45.760 cities his mom when she would uh start dilating would go across to the states and be born dual citizens 0.95

00:02:52.240 and uh back in the day uh she did that for my older brother and older sister but by the time they got 0.99

00:02:59.120 to me the fact that they were rh incompatible kicked in and so her ob-gyne said you'd be having that kid 1.00

00:03:06.160 in canada so myself and my younger sister the only reason we weren't born dual citizens was the fact

00:03:11.520 that my parents had incompatible blood and so um grew up in windsor kind of had the tax dual citizenship

00:03:21.680 paid in one country living in another kind of at the breakfast table uh going through law school i

00:03:27.360 needed a job my father was implementing the auto pack for gm at that point so he knew all the

00:03:31.760 customs guys got a job at the windsor detroit tunnel uh where you tell all the americans where all the

00:03:37.680 bars and and clubs are and i used to look at the immigration people with their feet up reading novels 1.00

00:03:43.600 and i thought oh that's the job for me and then we moved to toronto and i worked at terminal one

00:03:49.840 um going through never thinking i was going to practice it was just a great gig your customs

00:03:54.160 going going through uh go through uh uh school what is it that drags um law students into customs

00:04:01.120 officer work because i've noticed that like oh it's just the money it's like easy work you're just

00:04:05.520 sitting there with a vest on stamping things and yeah and you got lots of time between flights to

00:04:10.640 get up on your reading and uh uh and things and you know it's the it's the classic of course power uh

00:04:17.200 issue you have an extraordinary amount of power at ports of entry but i get to decide if you enter the

00:04:22.160 country now absolutely you're asking you're seeking my discretion right and uh uh and then

00:04:29.360 uh got called to the to the bar i had a kind of commerce undergraduate background i thought i was

00:04:34.480 going to be an international corporate lawyer whatever that is sounded sexy girls liked it uh 1.00

00:04:40.400 worked for six months and then they hit a recession and as they do in large firms they said well what else

00:04:46.240 can you do kid and i said well you know my law school study partner went and worked uh for baker

00:04:51.760 mckenzie a big american firm in hong kong he's been feeding me a bunch of hong kong clients since prior to

00:04:57.760 the 97 handover he got called in 1990 um i did my first us expatriation uh americans which is what we'll

00:05:06.400 get into here in order to leave their tax system after have to actually give up their u.s citizenship

00:05:13.600 if they're going to fully do it um and i was also on behalf of uh hsbc and uh british bank state or

00:05:21.520 charter kind of running up and down the gulf this is tuesday must be bahrain before during and after

00:05:27.280 the gulf war uh meeting private banking clients um and so really did a lot of that that very quickly

00:05:34.720 figured out that well my first product was canada or my first tool or solution was canada given the

00:05:42.000 fact that in in canada the immigration ministry quite frankly is a is a b team post every cabinet

00:05:49.600 shuffle there's somebody either on the way up or on the way down and changing immigration ministers you

00:05:54.880 know like a revolution in a latin american country uh constantly kind of changing and so i thought i better

00:06:02.640 learn some other stuff and so this has gone three decades later to i would call myself either a tax

00:06:10.160 savvy immigration advisor or an immigration savvy tax advisor so we look at and and whenever anybody

00:06:17.840 in any of these jurisdictions the first question they have to look at is how do i leave the current

00:06:23.520 jurisdiction i'm at how do i jump out of that pot we don't want to make sure they go into somebody

00:06:28.320 else's fire and how do i go into a a situation where i've reduced my global tax burden well i i have at

00:06:36.640 least maintained and hopefully increased my lifestyle so that's kind of the end goal of

00:06:41.520 the whole planning yeah and and to frame it a little bit further for you guys so you understand

00:06:47.200 tax burdens and the obligations you have when when you're in the top of the i mean it's a sliding

00:06:53.360 scale here in canada so if you're on the lower end you might pay i don't know i think it's less

00:06:57.520 than 30 percent but on the higher end like the top tax rate is 53 percent and change and uh you got

00:07:03.200 50 percent of capital gains you get all these taxes on fuels like they just keep piling stuff on you

00:07:08.400 and there's no end in sight there's a new tax that they just introduced this year on luxury they they're

00:07:13.200 calling it luxury vehicles but essentially any uh vehicle that costs over a hundred thousand dollars

00:07:18.800 there's it's somewhere between 10 and 20 so you can average it around 15 depending on what the final

00:07:24.160 price point is the vehicle but you already have a 13 tax rate so basically it brings it up close to 30

00:07:28.720 percent if you're a trades guy and you need a uh f-250 pickup truck with a diesel to tow some stuff

00:07:35.520 uh that's going to cost you over six figures so they just keep throwing stuff out out at people and

00:07:40.720 the next thing that's going to come come along after that that i've seen on the horizon is probably taxes

00:07:45.360 on your principal residence for capital gains i don't know if it'll be 100 or 20 or whatever that

00:07:50.640 looks like but uh the government is incredibly irresponsible when it comes to um budgeting and

00:07:57.520 policies they think money grows on trees they print it up when they feel like it and when when

00:08:01.280 it comes to budgeting and making things work what they do is they just tax people and because

00:08:07.360 guys that are chasing excellence putting a dent in the universe make more money it's easier for them

00:08:11.920 to vilify them and say let's go get it from them because he drives a mclaren or and he's got a yacht

00:08:18.480 you know at the toronto harbor sort of thing and um you know we'll redistribute that to the other

00:08:23.360 people over there so over the last couple years um and i know that you didn't watch the cast but

00:08:28.960 your friend had mentioned it to you but over the last couple years um i've seen at least a dozen guys

00:08:34.400 that are higher net worth individuals so these are top shelf men that have done probably two or more

00:08:40.720 exits with businesses um seven to eight figures in one case there was a nine-figure exit and they were

00:08:46.960 just like i'm done canada is no longer home um there's one in puerto rico there's a few in mexico

00:08:52.560 another guy that went down to barbados and all of these different countries have um ways to try to

00:08:58.240 invite money and talent and resources to kind of invest into their country because it becomes useful

00:09:05.120 to them right so there's an advantage for the country itself and the government there and there's

00:09:08.320 also an advantage to the guy moving his life to that place in the world um so i mean i could hang on

00:09:16.720 about this for a while now but um you moved to europe why did you choose poland well poland is

00:09:23.920 actually the second time i left canada so the first time i left canada was in the late 1990s and um

00:09:31.760 i actually co-authored a book with the london school of economic professor called flight of the golden geese

00:09:37.360 and what countries like the ones you mentioned and including a lot of high tax countries which attract

00:09:43.920 foreigners there on a lower tax basis um because they are that high-end tourist that they all spend 0.99

00:09:53.440 tourism money to try to attract they spend money they hire people they you know the consumer spending

00:09:59.520 if there's a vat they pay that etc so the way that they can attract them is by you know having a better

00:10:07.680 tax burden than where they're at and so i left this last time uh the month before mr trudeau was elected

00:10:15.040 the first time um i ended up uh moving to poland uh because i had recently gotten married to a a woman

00:10:24.880 who fell asleep on me on an airplane uh who was of polish descent and we had just had twins uh and wanted

00:10:32.640 to spend some time in poland for the twins to learn the language and we lived at the ritz carlton in

00:10:38.400 downtown toronto which is a wonderful place if you're an adult and sucks if you're a little toddler

00:10:43.520 because there's no swings or or playground within a kilometer of the place how many times can you go to

00:10:50.160 the aquarium we went a lot but you know how many times can you go um and uh and so we moved out and we

00:10:58.560 happened to move in poland uh which is very nice and with with the pre-immigration tax planning uh

00:11:05.680 very low global tax burden uh for me uh we have a business uh here that we're we're finishing up um

00:11:13.200 my in-laws this was the first time for them so we spent more time in poland especially we got kind

00:11:18.480 of trapped here with covid but we're moving our next move which was the one we've always planned

00:11:23.280 either to the algarve in portugal or to the mayan uh riviera in mexico and why mexico like what's uh

00:11:31.840 because a few guys i know have chosen mexico as their destination why is it so popular well you have

00:11:38.480 to look at what what's what kind of not only makes sense from a from a fiscal point of view but also

00:11:45.120 what you can sell at the breakfast table so i'm in a position where i have seven-year-old twins so i'm

00:11:51.040 going to be somewhere nine months of the year um and so that you know then has to be i'm not going to

00:11:59.360 move to pitcairn island uh that's not going to work so it's going to be kind of where can we have

00:12:05.120 we can from a pre-immigration tax planning it's pretty straightforward from a uh from an immigration

00:12:12.880 having permission to live there pretty straightforward so it's the lifestyle that that we're looking for

00:12:20.480 mayan riviera of course when people think of mexico you know some people think of of crime and

00:12:26.320 certainly there's crime in different places uh i have a different sense of that having grown up

00:12:31.760 you know next to detroit when it was known as murder city so i know kind of there are nice places and

00:12:36.320 places you don't want to go and how to be kind of street smart and uh mayan riviera is uh very nice

00:12:43.120 uh lots of uh the lifestyle that we want uh there is the schools that we want the housing that we want

00:12:49.360 and it's a little more low-key um than you know some of the the places which would be a little more

00:12:56.080 high pressure for kids you know when you're in manhattan the moment you get pregnant you try to

00:13:01.440 sign up for a preschool it's a little intense actually when i met my wife she was living in

00:13:07.200 manhattan and uh we both agreed nice place to visit but we don't want to raise kids there and you set up

00:13:12.800 your life and your business so that your location independent you can run it from pretty much anywhere in

00:13:17.200 the world right correct so i've been doing this for quite a while actually when covet hit

00:13:22.160 and people all of a sudden discovered skype and zoom and things they came to my lifestyle that i've had

00:13:28.560 uh you know for a decade uh so it's been actually quite good i used to be phileas fog and have to

00:13:34.000 travel all the time because people wouldn't hire me unless they they saw me well now you know it i i have

00:13:41.040 silicon valley clients who i'm getting a lineage citizenship for and a residence for them in new

00:13:47.040 zealand and i've got several billionaire clients who i've never actually been in the same room with

00:13:53.760 but you get to know so much about them and it's not that the ability to do it it's their comfort with it

00:14:00.320 uh has people have have gotten a lot more comfort with advisors and people online and they can kind of

00:14:08.000 quickly figure out who knows what they what they know and you know that the the higher end clients

00:14:14.720 also have teams of advisors so they quickly can kind of separate the the wannabes from those who 0.55

00:14:20.480 really know what they're doing and i'm not saying i'm i'm a genius but if you do anything for three plus

00:14:26.480 decades you get pretty good at it what have you noticed as a general trend with um these people that

00:14:33.600 are leaving canada you know the united states and moving themselves to these countries um that

00:14:41.200 purportedly will treat them better on the uh tax levels like is there a common theme that you've

00:14:45.760 noticed in their lives sure so so one of the things to understand is the revenue model of a progressive

00:14:52.960 tax system whether you think it's fair or not what ends up happening is the top one percent account for

00:14:59.520 anywhere from a third to forty percent of the total tax revenue so the government needs money

00:15:06.720 if you if you run any type of business and and one out of a hundred of your customers is bringing in a

00:15:11.360 third to forty percent of your revenue you kind of want to know about those customers well if you think

00:15:16.560 of those customers they are people who much more tend to be location independent they can run their

00:15:24.560 business from they don't have to be standing on the shop floor overlooking somebody um they have skills

00:15:32.480 etc which they can either put online or they can manage their money online and so they're much less

00:15:38.720 sticky from a business point of view the result is you only need a small number of those golden geese as

00:15:45.760 we call them to leave to have a huge negative asymmetric impact on the total tax revenue that they

00:15:54.800 that the subtitle of our book was how the one percent affect the 99 well you only need a small number of

00:16:00.720 the one percent to leave to leave a huge hole in you know that the government revenues for those left behind

00:16:08.800 and that's so the trend i've really seen is that people are

00:16:15.360 are really discovering their mobility um we've probably all seen the the kind of little map of manhattan like the

00:16:23.360 center of the world and you know a few bridge and tunnels over to new jersey and the rest of

00:16:27.840 the world's kind of very small and you had people whether they were in manhattan or toronto or london or

00:16:33.840 silicon valley who had very you know cultivated lives they really lived within five square blocks they went to the same

00:16:41.600 restaurants they went to the same work they you know socialized with the same people they had the same

00:16:46.960 amusements and they they couldn't really dream of overcoming this life inertia well covet came in

00:16:55.760 and they were kind of kicked out of town one step ahead of covet and they were sitting up there in

00:17:00.720 the hamptons or somewhere else and sitting there going listening to the new york city mayor race and

00:17:06.080 they're all talking about how they're going to crank up the the tax rate there or people are sitting and

00:17:10.880 listening to you know um mr trudeau and his deputy prime minister who wrote a book called plutocrats

00:17:18.400 christia freeland and you know the equivalents in different different other countries and they

00:17:24.240 started saying what's that book about by the way sorry what's that what's that book about by the way

00:17:29.520 i've not heard of it plutocrats yeah it's christia freeland talking about how the rich are ruining

00:17:34.560 the world for the rest of us oh okay so it's the richest fault again of course yeah um and so you

00:17:42.800 know so these people are sitting there saying well you know honey um our favorite restaurant there's

00:17:48.160 this thing called uber eats they'll deliver it to our door and there's this you know google teams and

00:17:53.600 zoom and skype and you know we've got out of manhattan and the world didn't collapse and you know

00:17:59.040 i we can actually reproduce our lifestyle and now i've got this the distance that i'm listening to what

00:18:05.120 you know now the frog has jumped out of the water and they're now scoring that's pretty hot water i

00:18:09.360 don't know if i go back in yeah and so then they start thinking about okay well we've already got a

00:18:14.560 place in florida let's relocate to florida so that's where you see you've seen the max exodus of people

00:18:19.520 the high-end people from new york who went went to florida and new york city has a city surtax and so

00:18:27.920 it's seen a 40 percent drop in their projections for tax revenues simply because some of the people

00:18:35.040 have picked up and moved to florida and you'll get and one of the key things to understand today is

00:18:42.800 you need to really do it i've had some people say well you know i'm not really going to move to

00:18:47.520 florida but they'll never know and then i'll say you do have a cell phone right yeah that's pinging off a

00:18:52.480 tower every second or so and they know exactly where you're at i mean just like the visitors to

00:19:00.000 the uh the capital on january 6th the police figured out where they were at well they're going to figure

00:19:05.680 out you know that you're standing in new york at going to your favorite bodega buying you know your

00:19:11.760 milk and and cookies um so they're very good and the onus is on you to prove that you've moved to

00:19:19.040 it's not on the on the tax authorities to move that to prove that you haven't left new york and so

00:19:25.120 that's where you need proper kind of advice you need to execute but the opportunities are tremendous

00:19:32.240 because people can much more reproduce their lifestyle independent of a specific location than

00:19:38.720 they could in the past yeah it's you know it's bizarre i mean i i'm glad that you mentioned that point

00:19:44.720 about like how much of an impact it has on the tax system when high net worth individuals just pick up

00:19:50.880 and move and just take everything with them to another place because that because that does affect

00:19:56.480 the less fortunate folk because there's less money to um i guess steal from the rich and give to the

00:20:03.120 poor sort of thing how what kind of effect does that have on the economy like over the longer term oh a

00:20:09.840 huge effect you have to look at um if we look at canada australia the uk for example all of those

00:20:17.760 jurisdictions have a vat tax a gst hst the united states does not so the united states when you look

00:20:25.360 at the total kind of pie of their government revenue they don't have that vat wedge so that's why

00:20:32.640 the united states it's actually even higher um a greater dependence so you just need a much smaller

00:20:41.120 number to leave and they've got a huge impact so when you have people like elizabeth warren who are

00:20:47.280 saying well you know we're not the the rhetoric move from let's get money for good stuff to let's take

00:20:54.720 money from bad people well you know that doesn't go over very well at the negotiating table and and

00:21:03.600 many of my clients are sitting there saying yeah i can contribute more i will but you know when you

00:21:09.360 start the conversation with selling beer mugs saying billionaires tears that's not a very productive

00:21:15.200 conversation so thank you very much i'm going to leave and and i will decide what's going to happen

00:21:21.440 to that money whether to lifestyle whether to my children whether to strategic philanthropy i mean

00:21:29.840 it was very revealing this past week when pro publica produces stuff they asked warren buffett

00:21:35.120 and he said well of course it makes more sense for me to give it to a charity than to

00:21:39.440 give it to the u.s government and um is the main reason to lower taxes is it because they're fed up

00:21:48.080 with state policy and the liberalization of the west is it a combination of that like it's a combination

00:21:54.400 of things so each country has its own particular you know issues in the united states uh you know it's

00:22:04.320 certainly been political dysfunction um an increasing sense of uh societal violence um a a a

00:22:18.800 very polarization uh of the population and a sense of government doesn't kind of work

00:22:25.680 so let's contrast that for example with switzerland um and you know people who talk

00:22:32.560 about wealth taxes for example they'll you know everybody's well all these other countries it's not

00:22:37.120 working and they go well if switzerland has kept it you know let's follow switzerland well

00:22:43.600 switzerland you have to understand is a federation however all the power resides at the cantonal level

00:22:51.600 a canton is the size of a the biggest cities are geneva and and zurich i mean these are only cities

00:22:58.480 of a couple hundred thousand people most cantons are less than 100 000 people is the canton the same

00:23:04.800 thing as a city state or similar to that like a province okay so so and all the power resides at the

00:23:10.960 provincial level and so that canton they vote on what the wealth tax rate is they collect the wealth

00:23:18.800 tax and the wealth tax is spent in that community so it's much more akin to a property tax people say

00:23:26.000 yeah i i accept that because i can see it built the community center and it built the roads and it built

00:23:32.000 all the things that i can actually see have a positively impact and so that's why there's a lot more

00:23:37.200 acceptance whereas when you get into larger countries where monies are going into the general coffers

00:23:43.680 you know you can have politicians saying oh well you know we're gonna we're gonna spend it all on uh

00:23:48.640 you know on on puppy dogs and and and flowers but it doesn't go to that the way money's going to

00:23:55.600 general coffer there's then first goes to pay interest on the debt then it goes to non-discretionary

00:24:02.560 spending then if anything's left then it goes to discretionary spending and maybe it'll go to

00:24:09.600 that societal ill that you want to whether it's early childhood education or cancer research or

00:24:15.360 whatever it is so one option is to use the government as a charitable vehicle well

00:24:20.720 not terribly efficient or effective or the other is i'm going to affect you know once i've got my

00:24:28.320 wife's still money and my children's money you know i can't take the rest with me um i'm going to uh

00:24:35.280 engage in strategic philanthropy and i don't think the government's a very good vehicle thank you mr

00:24:40.160 buffett for the quote and he is going to donate it to the societal ills that he thinks uh are important

00:24:48.560 and he knows that that will be dealt with effectively or efficiently well um why do you think it is that the

00:24:56.080 the like government officials these bureaucrats these politicians aren't able to understand that

00:25:04.000 guys that are like one of the things that drives me nuts is i can go and take the risk of buying a

00:25:10.080 stock uh pre-ipo there's one that i bought in that's in the psychedelics field that i bought at a very low

00:25:16.480 entry point i took all the risk there was no proven uh you know point that this company was going to take

00:25:22.640 off um and they don't have the regulatory approval uh really to justify piling money into it but i like

00:25:32.400 the guys running it i know they've had successful exits twice i know that they work hard um and i

00:25:38.160 believe in what it is that they're doing so i've taken the risk i can go throw it all in there and

00:25:43.280 maybe it turns into a mill or two you know and i make some serious money off it um and then the

00:25:49.840 government just comes along and says oh that's cool i'll just take half of that now right you

00:25:53.760 know they've done no work they've taken no risk and they just take like why is it that you think

00:25:58.080 that the government doesn't get it through their heads that guys aren't going to let themselves be

00:26:02.960 treated like tax cattle over and over again um and redistribute money in a frivolous fashion like

00:26:10.160 one of the things that i think was announced since the g7 summit is justin justin trudeau mentioned

00:26:15.120 um that they're going to be uh distributing vaccines coveted vaccines to uh less fortunate

00:26:21.600 countries at i think they're spending something like twice or two and a half times the rate as

00:26:26.240 what the us is and our population canada for those of you that don't know is something like

00:26:30.960 10 of the us so justin trudeau has basically unilaterally decided i'm just going to take some

00:26:37.920 money that i've stolen from people and i'm going to send it outside of the country to benefit these other

00:26:44.080 people here um you know so i've got a whole bunch of problems with that why is it you think that the

00:26:48.160 government doesn't get that people that have done work and taken risks in their lives and

00:26:54.320 put a dent in the universe aren't going to let themselves be treated like tax cattle

00:27:00.480 because they have allowed themselves to be treated like tax cattle for too long

00:27:04.640 and they also it doesn't benefit the politician politicians you're only going to be one vote rich

00:27:10.960 right there's going to be 99 other votes you know taxation and the democracy is kind of like

00:27:19.520 nine wolves and a sheep voting over what's for dinner right uh and and that's the way it is is it

00:27:25.760 unfair absolutely so the question is not whether it's unfair or not the question is what are you going

00:27:34.080 to do about it and you have a bunch of tools that you can use to organize your life so that you can say

00:27:42.080 this is the life i want i'm going to arbitrage the things i like whether that's weather or lifestyle

00:27:50.960 or infrastructure or you know a wide variety of things so that i can have those things at the

00:28:01.840 you know at the best possible um

00:28:08.800 you know a cost to me and so you know i i don't spend a lot of time trying to think about how i'm

00:28:18.240 going to convince you know a large population of people uh to think like i think i'm going to just

00:28:25.840 spend the time to recognize that's the way they are and i'm just going to organize my life and

00:28:31.760 there's a lot of opportunities in the modern world to do that so that their negativity has a minimum

00:28:39.760 impact on my life and that of my family okay well let's um switch gears a bit and talk more about

00:28:46.240 destinations and um why they're attractive to um guys looking to minimize their tax burns and have a

00:28:54.080 a lot more personal freedom i mean we talked off the air a couple weeks ago um i mentioned to you

00:28:59.760 and i can you know repeat it again i also mentioned it in the plane to win cast from that

00:29:04.160 time as well it was around may 23rd if you guys haven't seen it you can go back and watch it but

00:29:07.760 essentially i've got an eight to ten year plan so i've got some runway um i've made the mistake in

00:29:13.120 the you know the past of my life and of course this is stuff that you learn as a man as you get

00:29:16.720 older and you become more seasoned and you've got a little salt and pepper in the beard

00:29:19.680 um and you can plan better you know you make less knee-jerk you know decision you know decisions and

00:29:26.640 this is something that i want to take my time on so this is kind of the early steps for me um i've got

00:29:32.640 about eight to ten years simply because my daughter's not an adult yet so you know i'm doing i'm doing the

00:29:37.760 right thing and um you know being that full-time parent obviously you know we share custody so you're

00:29:43.760 familiar as a lawyer the child goes back and forth and you know in a shared sort of fashion and um

00:29:49.520 at some point you know i want to spend a lot less time in canada i want to not pay the ridiculous

00:29:54.080 tax rates that i'm having to pay i don't want to deal with the liberalist agenda the wokeness the

00:29:58.400 virtue signaling all that nonsense and the cold winter so for a guy like me that probably needs

00:30:05.200 to stay within a reasonable distance from toronto because you're going to be traveling back and forth

00:30:10.080 if you've got family here especially a child or grandkids you know this time goes on whatever um

00:30:15.200 it wouldn't be ideal for me to go somewhere like asia eastern europe so i'm thinking somewhere

00:30:19.920 in the caribbean and there's a few different options down there because most places down

00:30:23.760 there are roughly a four-hour flight uh i've been really keen on the idea of maybe getting a sailboat

00:30:29.840 and sailing around the caribbean or maybe even the world at some point um what would be the ideal

00:30:35.280 destinations for me to consider at this point given all those things that we've just covered

00:30:39.680 sure so there's a couple considerations as i said the first thing you have to consider is where

00:30:44.480 you're leaving from so canada says okay in order for you to not no longer be a tax resident in canada

00:30:52.400 you need to in the future spend less than 183 days in canada you also need to centralize your mode of

00:31:00.080 living outside of canada and the best example i use i like to use is you know when do you become

00:31:07.920 resident in canada well when does water become soup you add certain key vegetables like a home

00:31:14.960 where a spouse is where your children are those are major vegetables you'll have soup you can add some

00:31:20.320 other minor vegetables like a car club memberships things like that so canada says well you you can get

00:31:29.040 rid of your your house your daughter is now off to university so no longer in your house you don't 0.99

00:31:34.720 have a spouse or your spouse is moving with you somewhere um so you've got rid of those ties in

00:31:41.040 canada but you have to get them somewhere else so in the case of canada for the first two years to have

00:31:47.360 clearly left you'll want to get so what we'll call pied-à-terre a home whether you buy it or rent it

00:31:54.560 whether that's in abracus key and belize or turks and caicos or we're or or in nassau um that's fine

00:32:05.040 once you have clearly severed your time in canada's eyes and two years is kind of the working working

00:32:11.360 time then you can get rid of that thing in nassau and live completely on your boat and so long as in

00:32:16.320 the future you don't spend more than 183 days in canada or reacquire those main things in canada

00:32:24.320 home and spouse or child in that that home then you're you're done with canada and the moment

00:32:31.280 you're finished with canada is as if you're dying to the canadian tax system so you have a deemed

00:32:36.800 disposition for capital gains purposes so they're given the runway you've got rich you've got lots of

00:32:43.520 time to do planning to minimize the impact of that departure so there's a you know there's a whole bunch

00:32:50.720 of solutions that you can do from is it pre-ipo do i get discounting opportunities what is the

00:32:58.960 what is the exemption small business exemptions if you're in the states you have q sops and all kinds

00:33:04.000 of different things that you can do so each jurisdiction you have to kind of look at what

00:33:08.000 what do i need to leave for an american they need to to they can move abroad and if they establish

00:33:15.040 what's called a foreign tax home they can get an exemption uh called a section 9-1-1 exemption

00:33:22.800 on their first there's a earned income it has to be earned income as opposed to income passive income

00:33:32.160 for example and then you get some other things about a hundred thousand dollars once you include

00:33:36.000 all the housing and all the other things you can get in and people say okay i got a hundred thousand

00:33:40.720 free of the u.s i only pay on everything above that that's fine for those people where it's not enough

00:33:47.120 and they want it could be completely free of the u.s filing and taxation and planning then they need to

00:33:53.680 get another citizenship and give up their u.s citizenship australia has has actually just

00:34:01.280 recently changed the rules you know australia used to be quite a sticky wicket now it's much

00:34:06.240 more straightforward uh the uk has particular rules and you also have to look at what are they taxing

00:34:13.520 canada taxes income and capital gain the united states taxes income capital gain gift and estate tax

00:34:20.880 the uk doesn't have a gift tax but they have an estate tax some jurisdictions most of them will

00:34:26.800 have income and capital gain some of them will have wealth some of gift taxes some of them will have

00:34:31.920 estate taxes so you have to kind of understand that part then where are you going to so we've

00:34:36.160 effectively we've officially left you jumped out of the canadian pot where do we where do you want to

00:34:43.520 go well for some people they say you know uh i got that place in the bahamas i'm going to keep that

00:34:49.440 for two years i'm going to live in a boat i'm going to travel around i don't i'm not going to spend

00:34:54.320 more than six months anywhere therefore i'm not going to jump into somebody else's tax system

00:35:00.080 if you're somebody like me says yeah i got little kids i'm going to be somewhere nine months of the

00:35:03.760 year so i have to think about the new place i'm in and make sure i shelter myself from that from that

00:35:10.720 tax system now i can shelter myself a variety of ways it may be a low or zero tax jurisdiction

00:35:16.400 nasa or barbados for example it may be a jurisdiction which says we only tax you on local source income

00:35:24.640 so fine i'll keep all my money and my income and capital gain producing assets outside of that

00:35:28.800 jurisdiction others will say you need to apply for and meet certain standards for example portugal has

00:35:35.280 something called the non-habitual tax resident certificate other jurisdictions like ireland uk malta cyprus

00:35:42.960 they say well we have something called a remittance basis where we only pay on local tax or on foreign

00:35:49.120 current foreign income you've taken your hands other places say you know what write a check lump sum so

00:35:56.640 that would be switzerland italy and greece they have what's called a lump sum so whether you make

00:36:02.000 a dollar or a hundred million you're going to pay a hundred thousand euros to italy or greece

00:36:06.080 um in switzerland it's negotiated again at the cantona level so you'll pay more if you negotiate

00:36:14.720 a forfeit in one of the major cities like geneva zurich doesn't have it and that's an interesting

00:36:20.640 little story but if you say you know what i ski so i'm going to go up to another place um zurich about

00:36:27.120 nine years the residence of zurich the the left has said oh well it's terrible that these foreigners 0.99

00:36:32.240 come in here and pay a lump sum and you know it's not fair and they campaigned and they just squeaked

00:36:37.200 by and they walk that they they they uh brought the referendum and and and they won and they got

00:36:44.160 rid of the forfeit in the canton of zurich and all the left said oh this is great everybody else is

00:36:49.360 going to do this not only did nobody else do it but all the wealthy people in zurich went up the road to

00:36:54.800 zug which is now the crypto valley so they're actually going to have another referendum saying it was

00:37:01.440 not a bad system let's bring back the forfeit into zurich so you know when when you've got voters who

00:37:09.440 understand and politicians who are not you know can you can anybody name the president of of switzerland

00:37:18.480 i don't know it's pretty no because they're it's kind of like a non can you you know can you name the

00:37:24.480 capital it's burned but you know is anybody yeah so it's just it's you know there isn't pomp and

00:37:33.760 circumstances all it's kind of like you know a local politician they're not you know aggrandized as

00:37:40.560 they are in in other high tax countries and that's why switzerland works so lifestyle for you so i have a

00:37:47.440 question here for my buddy bobby um and he can't attend the uh private call but he's saying what are the

00:37:52.640 best countries to relocate to that don't require you to live there two-thirds of the year in order

00:37:56.400 for you to pay as little as tax legally possible he's currently in the us uh he lives in michigan

00:38:02.240 um it sounds to me like it's not where you go to pay little taxes it's it's it's the amount of time

00:38:07.760 that you're not in your country of residence that you're leaving right absolutely true except for one

00:38:14.160 one exception which is the puerto rico option all right puerto has has act used to be act 21 and 22

00:38:21.680 is now act 60 where you have to um where if you go there not only do you have to minimize your time

00:38:30.080 in the united states you have to actually spend 183 days on the island of puerto rico right um and so

00:38:38.240 what happened is after the fiscal crisis john paulson uh of the big short fame um bought a big uh a

00:38:45.920 resort and everybody said well paulson's the smartest guy in town we'll follow him and they

00:38:50.560 all went to puerto rico the problem is that didn't sell well at the breakfast table for a lot of people

00:38:55.760 moving from manhattan to puerto rico nice enough place but when the kids come home and going you know

00:39:01.440 dad i'm not working none of the kids speak english and i don't know i've never kicked a

00:39:07.280 soccer ball in my life uh and you know there's two hurricanes here and there's there was an

00:39:12.560 earthquake and you know if you can't live it then it's going to be difficult so i was getting a call

00:39:19.600 from a lot of those people they'd overcome the life inertia of being where you know in connecticut or in

00:39:25.840 in manhattan and they moved to puerto rico but they found it difficult to live there and the the

00:39:32.080 advantage if you could was that you got federal capital gains free and there wasn't no state

00:39:37.280 capital gains so it was very good for people who get a lot of capital gains like fund managers get

00:39:42.320 something called carried interest um unfortunately a lot of people couldn't live the lifestyle

00:39:47.920 so they did one of three things they hired me and they expatriated and left canada or left the united

00:39:56.000 states um they moved back into the united states and gave up that tax advantage or they thought yeah

00:40:04.400 nobody's auditing me i'm not going to they're not checking you know i fly privately they never know

00:40:11.280 it's like well your pilot fly files a a flight plan and that pilot that you've been kind of abusing

00:40:21.440 is sitting there saying well there's a whistleblower reward if i turn over this guy uh etc so actually

00:40:28.000 uh about a week and a half ago bloomberg did a whole article talking about coming to puerto rico irs

00:40:34.160 is waiting for you and i you'll probably see me quoted in a follow-up article because the irs is

00:40:40.880 focusing they're going to fish where the fish are and they're going to turn over that rock and they're

00:40:45.600 going to discover a whole bunch of people who thought they were being cute who not only are going to get

00:40:52.160 slapped with with the actual tax but with all the penalties and the willfulness and they'll lord

00:40:58.320 tax evasion over them and get all the settlements so it's going to be ugly puerto rico great if you can

00:41:06.320 live the lifestyle right um but for you rich it would be you know what's the cheapest place that

00:41:14.000 you can get somewhere for for two years yeah like what should i be looking at because i want to go and

00:41:18.400 walk about you know check out a few different countries i would say where i like to live

00:41:23.520 so so the the i'm big on mexico like i love mexico i visited barbados not a big fan of barbados

00:41:29.040 there's other caribbean islands that i like too but mexico i've always been fond of well barbados is

00:41:34.080 south it's a it's a long flight it's a seven hour flight from toronto yeah it's so um you know mexico

00:41:40.880 costa rica um belize they all have their variations of what are called pensionero programs

00:41:48.240 so you're you're getting the right to live in those jurisdictions you basically have to show

00:41:54.400 that you've got enough money to sustain yourself at pretty minimal levels um 100 grand 200 grand

00:42:00.960 like what do they look oh no you you you would show that you've got an annual monthly of 5 000

00:42:06.960 available to you okay so it's pretty small yeah and so you and if you say i don't like belizian banks 0.98

00:42:12.960 it's fine you say i've got that your your ass doesn't need to be where your assets are 0.95

00:42:20.000 right yeah you mentioned that on the call actually you know what i wanted to touch on uh before i 0.98

00:42:24.880 forget because you told an interesting story about a uh kuwaiti family during the war that um

00:42:32.720 they had assets tied up and i think you made an argument for having multiple passports because of that

00:42:38.240 yeah yeah so if you can think back to to 1990 when saddam invaded invaded kuwait he invaded in august

00:42:47.680 august in kuwait is not a fun place it's like 45 celsius so the only person left there was you know

00:42:54.240 poor cousin iqbal who drew the short straw everybody else was in london paris montreu new york you know

00:43:01.120 enjoying the summer so i had a client who was going to buy um a condo in toronto there and put i was

00:43:08.880 with a big firm in toronto at that point put the monies on in escrow you know we were going to pay

00:43:14.080 it out as as per the construction milestones and uh he was in in um in london at the mandarin oriental

00:43:24.560 and you know had a number of people there and spent money freely and he called me up and said oh

00:43:34.560 my god the the americans and the brits have frozen all of the kuwaiti's assets because they don't want

00:43:42.720 us to be subject to to having to pay kidnapping ransom to to bail out cousin iqbal

00:43:48.640 and so he said what am i going to do i said well you happen to have five million canadians sitting

00:43:54.960 in our firm trust account walk away from the deal and i'll pay your bills so i would send money to the

00:44:01.840 mandarin oriental now i don't know about you rich but i can last a while i'm five million canadian but

00:44:07.680 i don't have an entourage or yeah you had a big family lifestyle and of course we didn't know when

00:44:14.720 saddam was going to be leaving so the lesson for for him is it all worked out in the end was

00:44:21.520 you want to have monies available to you in in in multiple jurisdictions you want to have

00:44:26.800 citizenships multiple passport because what had happened if there had been you know a takeover like

00:44:33.520 there was in iran uh what if there's a takeover in in a lot of countries um and they cancel your

00:44:39.760 passport the thing to remember about your passport no matter what country it is look on the inside

00:44:45.520 cover it's not your passport it's the property of canada the u.s australia kuwait wherever that

00:44:52.560 they let you use right up to the moment that they don't let you use it so if they want to go after

00:45:00.000 you jack ma they'll cancel your chinese passport if you haven't got another passport you're not going 0.88

00:45:08.160 anywhere so there's an argument for having more than one passport when you're when you've become

00:45:12.480 a top shelf individual right absolutely and it's not only and i always i think i was telling you the

00:45:18.240 story i always have to preface this with myself and my siblings didn't go out night clubbing looking

00:45:22.720 for europeans but as it turned out my my older sister married a latvia my brother married an italian

00:45:28.640 i married a scotswoman and on a pole and my younger sister married an irishman now i'm the only one to

00:45:33.840 actually use the passport and go and live abroad but all of my nieces and nephews have done everything

00:45:39.360 from kind of a gap year to school to you know i've got a niece that's lived in brussels for i think

00:45:46.160 seven or eight years now um and so it's something that citizenship is not only an insurance policy but

00:45:54.000 it's also something as an opportunity and one of the things for for americans and by that i mean

00:46:01.600 the north americans latin americans and central americans and south americans those were all

00:46:08.640 immigration destination countries in the the 19th and 20th century so a lot of people have claims to

00:46:18.320 a lineage citizenship and that's a pro low-hanging fruit and people might say well you know but i don't

00:46:24.480 want to live in lithuania well no it's because of the treaty of rome that lithuanian passport doesn't

00:46:30.080 just give you access to lithuania gives you access to 26 other countries and so if you've got that

00:46:37.680 family heritage that's very valuable how valuable eric schmidt formerly of google didn't have that

00:46:45.360 guy laid out three million euros for a cypriot passport doesn't want to go live in cyprus but

00:46:51.440 if he's bailing out of the u.s he's going to go live in switzerland or italy or greece on a lump sum

00:46:57.680 so um so speaking of which so i was born in the united kingdom my dad's uh british my mom's greek

00:47:05.920 she was born i think my mom was born in egypt if i'm not mistaken but she grew up in cyprus lebanon

00:47:12.000 and greece and egypt for some part of her life as well um are there any like shortcuts that i should

00:47:18.800 consider as far as like i've already got a british passport you know it's expired i just have to go and

00:47:24.640 do the renewal thing obviously but are there any other um you know considerations that i should place

00:47:30.240 over this eight to ten year plan where i might want to acquire other plat passports or consider

00:47:34.880 other countries of residencies because it because it allows you like a backdoor entrance to another

00:47:38.640 country because of whatever absolutely so with that kind of so uh you know people have very fact

00:47:45.600 situation fact specific situations and uh if they don't already have the citizenship so you know the

00:47:51.920 question is are you entitled to a greek or possibly even a cypriot passport um so what client what i have

00:47:59.520 people do is send me an email with their basic facts i run through and say well if we can get the

00:48:05.040 documents to show prove this you will qualify so i do that kind of assessment for free or no you're not

00:48:11.840 going to you're not going to qualify if we think that they are going to qualify the first step is we

00:48:18.320 we get a professional genealogist to make sure the documentation is available and of course one of

00:48:24.400 the practical problems in certain parts of europe as a result of the first and second world war is is

00:48:30.080 the records just aren't available but can we piece together the records not from when they left but when

00:48:35.840 from they arrived in halifax or new york or boston or or you know bonos eros or wherever they were coming

00:48:42.480 into um and so we if we can if you you you clear yeah it looks like you qualify we can actually prove

00:48:52.720 it and then we submit the application which you may be happy living on a boat sailing around the

00:48:58.640 caribbean but you've just opened up the opportunity for your daughter and your daughter's future children

00:49:05.200 to go live work and study not only in the uk which you've got as a result of but because of brexit

00:49:13.760 you've still got the other 26 or 27 eu countries that you can that she can go to what a valuable thing

00:49:22.320 okay so it's worthwhile doing that then um let me just uh catch up here on some of these super chats

00:49:28.800 because some guys have been posting some questions and comments here that are relevant to the to the cast and

00:49:34.160 uh then we'll kind of start to wind down and we'll switch it over to that zoom link for the

00:49:38.560 community and talk in some depth and some other stuff um what we got here to do uh captain herring

00:49:46.640 says i think the giveaways are to win favor with biden's woke agenda it's easy to spend opm other people's

00:49:53.680 money it's yeah i mean it it's an easy way to get votes yes and you know trees fall in the forest

00:50:04.160 yeah mexican iron man says my tax firm has served u.s businesses owners for 16 years and mr lesperance

00:50:10.880 is 100 accurate fyi i moved my firm headquarters to south carolina away from california and south

00:50:17.440 carolina gas sales income etc taxes are much lower great show thank you sir um that's the interesting

00:50:24.080 thing about the u.s is you actually have opportunities to still be american and live within the u.s and pay

00:50:30.240 more preferable tax rates whereas in canada it's like one or two percent different depending on

00:50:35.120 what province you live in i think you know i think alberta has probably the best rates in canada but

00:50:39.280 it's not much different right like we don't have that advantage here do we yeah you don't have the

00:50:42.880 big spread you don't have the big delta you have you know between california and texas or new york

00:50:47.360 and florida that you do between you know quebec and and and alberta um i tell clients to think of you

00:50:55.280 know the current environment kind of like being in a wildfire zone so what do you do when you're in

00:51:00.160 a wildfire zone while you engage in fire prevention those would be domestic tax planning

00:51:05.840 for in the states for example that would be moving from a california to a south carolina or

00:51:10.400 to a lower lower tax jurisdiction you've eliminated at least the state level of taxation for that

00:51:16.560 it may be doing things like in the u.s they have a gift in the state tax so there's something

00:51:21.200 called a unified credit right now 11.7 million with bernie sanders and elizabeth warren it's not

00:51:28.320 going to stay at 11.7 million so you may want to make that earlier now uh you got a great company

00:51:34.240 called zoom that went through the roof i'm going to do something called a grat there's a whole you

00:51:38.640 know i i'm a founder of a silicon valley company i'm going to use before it gets to 50 million i'm going

00:51:43.520 to do a qsop i mean again this is all the normal domestic tax planning the other thing you do along

00:51:50.080 with fire prevention is you get fire insurance and that's that alternative citizenship alternative

00:51:56.160 residence when you buy fire insurance it doesn't mean you're going to actually use it it just means

00:52:01.520 that you recognize that if the fire gets too close for your comfort you've got an option to avoid your

00:52:07.440 fiscal house burning down and for other clients what's the fire escape plan you know we in in canada

00:52:15.440 it is a deemed disposition in the united states if you're what's called a covered expatriate which is

00:52:21.680 you have more than two million in worldwide assets or you have more than 172 million 172 000 in average

00:52:30.720 u.s tax paid over the last five years you're going to be subject to a deemed disposition

00:52:36.480 but do you want to get out now well the top federal rate is 23.8 percent with the obama surcharge

00:52:42.480 or do you want to wait until mr biden comes in and it's 43.4 percent federal and then if you're

00:52:49.200 still in the state you're going to add the state on top of that now he's proposed that he's also come

00:52:54.880 out with what's called the green book which is these are the proposals what's the effective date

00:53:00.400 and he chose april 28th that's aspirational it's not yet the law i actually had a client silicon valley guy

00:53:08.800 who expatriated and was deemed to have sold all the stuff the day before so i sent him a little

00:53:17.840 mem of of indiana jones sliding under a rock and reaching back and grabbing his hat before it came

00:53:23.680 in i mean that's pretty close but for a lot of clients from a practical viewpoint it will probably be

00:53:30.480 from uh january 1st 2022 so that means you can get out now well it's 23.8 elizabeth warren's

00:53:41.520 ultra millionaire taxes you'll not only pay the capital gains tax at whatever the rate is

00:53:46.560 23.8 or 43.4 whatever you have left we want 40 cents on the dollar

00:53:52.320 so thank you elizabeth warren you put you know a lot of hot wheels in my kids rooms and and barbies

00:54:02.480 in my daughter's hands this year i mean she's great uh i you know it's it's not the ultra

00:54:09.360 millionaire's tax bill it's the dave lesbron's full employment bill yeah well um you'll be busy no doubt

00:54:16.560 with that um uh another super chat here just from charlie brown just throwing uh five dollars at

00:54:22.320 the show thanks for that he has another one following up saying i'm canadian like rich i

00:54:26.480 just got two million uh is sorry i've just got two million is net worth investments etc and

00:54:32.400 sorry in net worth so is costa rica a good option thanks for the podcast it's great so

00:54:37.120 i guess that like would bring me to the question is who who should work with a guy like you and if the

00:54:44.320 line in the sand sits here and dave deals with these guys who's going to deal with the guys that

00:54:48.960 have a lower net worth there there are so one of the things to understand first off is can you live

00:54:57.120 the lifestyle okay so you know can you spend more than 183 days outside of canada for example can you

00:55:05.040 spend less than it works it's a percentage of two years last year this year 120 days outside of the

00:55:10.880 united states uh can you limit it to 120 days um if you if you can then then we start looking at kind

00:55:21.360 of what the thing what the thing is um and so there are different advisors and i can i can send that to

00:55:26.560 you rich who do kind of lifestyle questionnaires so ask questions like you know i'm gonna you know i

00:55:32.800 like sun people often ask me what's the best place to go well some people love big cities some people want

00:55:38.320 to be in remote location some people want four seasons some people want it you know 30 celsius

00:55:46.240 every day um it's it's a very personal thing um i would often get uh you know hired by somebody just

00:55:54.080 been audited or sued or gone through a divorce and they'll go okay move me to a rock in the middle

00:55:58.640 of the ocean where there's no lawyers and no taxes i say sure no problem pack a gun well why well within

00:56:05.920 six months either you're going to want to kill yourself or your family's going to want to kill 0.99

00:56:10.160 you oh no no no no i want schools i want you know i i want i want a place to ride my motorcycle around 0.99

00:56:16.080 on the weekends i want you know i have to have an office and some staff i gotta i've gotta you know

00:56:21.600 i've gotta have a this kind of bandwidth for my bloomberg you know whatever it is i need to have you know

00:56:27.840 access to a hospital for dialysis you know whatever that was say okay well what are the jurisdictions

00:56:34.960 that not only have your your requirements but also your preferences and then amongst those

00:56:41.520 jurisdictions in costa rica i love costa rica i've driven around all four corners of the place

00:56:46.880 pretty safe um some beautiful places uh you don't want to live in limon but you know there's some really

00:56:53.760 nice places um from from high you know uh san jose down to the coastal areas um how's it there's some

00:57:02.880 excellent housing that's built to the standard that a a north american would would be used to uh pretty 0.80

00:57:11.440 easy flights in and out um crime is low the the immigration is pretty straightforward so for that that

00:57:19.360 question yet you had he's got two million in net worth so my first question would be and how much

00:57:24.160 of that is unrealized capital gain because you have to contemplate how do i minimize my capital gain so

00:57:32.320 that i net out the greatest amount of net worth the next question is do i need to have that money in

00:57:39.680 in costa rica and the answer is absolutely not i mean uh i haven't been in the same country as my

00:57:46.400 financial institution in about 15 years um right now i do most of my transactions through transfer wise

00:57:56.320 uh it happens very quick very quickly fees are peanuts everything's done by email um i can switch

00:58:04.080 between currencies because i i do things in euros and sterling us dollars canadian dollars aussie dollars

00:58:11.760 so you know it's it's very good i mean i wouldn't stick with the bricks and mortars for my like

00:58:17.840 regular bank account at all and i can pay for everything from you know buying milk at the local

00:58:23.040 store to my rent i'm interested in cryptocurrency changing all of that banking stuff right now for us

00:58:28.800 well cryptocurrency is a very interesting very interesting thing i've written a couple of pieces

00:58:34.560 about this so i'm getting a lot of inquiries um from from different groups kind of three different

00:58:42.000 groups one will be the early adopters um who got into cryptocurrency great for them i wish i had done

00:58:51.360 the same i didn't um and who's seen their you know that the values explode and some of them have just sat

00:58:59.440 on it sitting in coal wallets you know buried in their garage uh other people are actively trading you

00:59:06.480 know like they're doing game stop uh back and forth the tax ramifications are are are huge depending on

00:59:15.280 what they've done and which jurisdiction they are and how that's treated are they long-term capital gains

00:59:19.760 are they short short-term you know ordinary tax rates is it have they created a taxable event

00:59:25.840 um etc all those things need to be happened um and so i get a lot of calls from what i'll call

00:59:33.840 the bitcoin bros and so they they're very steeped in cryptocurrency but they're not terribly

00:59:39.840 financially sophisticated so they don't understand capital gains they don't understand taxable events

00:59:45.840 those kinds of things and they may have inadvertently kind of triggered some tax event and they haven't

00:59:52.240 declared it yet well you know in the united states there's something called operation hidden treasure

00:59:57.840 there's a number of different you know that the the rest of the world has looked at them and say oh

01:00:04.080 hidden treasure great for us we need it just at the time for uh for covid relief um so there so all

01:00:11.280 jurisdictions are going after them and each jurisdiction as i said treats it differently and so some of them have

01:00:17.440 bought into this oh it's the perfect tax haven they'll never they'll never find it and you know

01:00:22.800 i said well you know so thought the guys who did the ransomware thing you know uh a little month ago

01:00:29.600 well they located and they seized that bitcoin oh yes but i'm using monero or i'm using mixers i'm using

01:00:36.480 it's so i say to clients look you have really kind of an option here you can put it in a coal wallet put

01:00:43.920 it in you know bury it in your mother's garden and stare at it and say i'm worth 10 million but

01:00:52.000 i can't buy a cup of coffee because the second i do they're going to catch me and it's kind of like

01:00:58.560 i you know from the movie goodfellas it's kind of like they had this big heist from lufanza but they

01:01:04.480 couldn't spend any of the money and they all went crazy because they were worried that the cops are going

01:01:09.040 to get them so you don't want that so then this and and those who kind of you know bought stuff and

01:01:14.960 put it on instagram well they're doing lifestyle audits or they brag to their buddies about it well

01:01:19.840 they got whistleblowers so it's like if you come in before them pay the tithe do it as efficiently as

01:01:28.640 possible because your options close the second the tax authorities identify you so if you come in

01:01:34.080 beforehand on your terms and organize it do it as tax efficiently as possible pay the minimum amount

01:01:40.800 you possibly can take the proceeds organize your life so it's not taxable in the future

01:01:47.840 you can do very well so that's one group the bitcoin bros the next group are interestingly family

01:01:55.840 offices for so ultra high net worth families will have family offices which are let's say ultra high

01:02:01.200 net worth individual like what do they have 100 million yeah for a family office you can get

01:02:06.800 into what's called a multiple family office where where it's it's one group that deals with a variety

01:02:12.400 of different families with single family office a multiple family office kind of starts making sense

01:02:17.200 at 20 million uh single family office because you got to hire all your own staff and stuff's kind of 100

01:02:22.480 million and so i deal with a lot of family offices and so what happened there was you had investment

01:02:28.880 people who said you know what the millennial in the family was kept bugging us so we bought some crypto

01:02:34.800 just to shut them up and oh my god it's a major check of our assets right now but those those groups were

01:02:42.000 very sophisticated and understood the the tax ramifications so they're going to sell the old

01:02:48.960 stuff that's at long-term capital gains as opposed to the stuff they just bought they're going to buy and

01:02:53.920 hold long term they're going to put it in trust they're going to put it in structures the last group

01:03:00.000 um are what i'll call the picks and shovels of the crypto industry so if you can think back

01:03:06.720 to kind of the early 2000s and online gaming was just becoming a thing and most of the late vegas you

01:03:14.480 know bricks and mortars they didn't really work they didn't think about losing you know poker players

01:03:18.800 or their sports books yeah this is computer internet thing is kind of a minor thing well

01:03:24.160 i happen to have a lot of american clients who were founders of online gaming companies and those were

01:03:30.720 the biggest ipos in the london exchange in 2005 2006 so prior to that there was liquidity events

01:03:39.440 they hired me they renounced their u.s citizenship they paid a lower amount of tax upon those things well

01:03:46.080 a year or two later all of a sudden gaming became a thing and vegas said oh they're taking some of our

01:03:53.200 market share now for those who aren't americans it's a little difficult to understand but the u.s has

01:04:00.160 not only a federal criminal tax system but each state has its own criminal criminal uh code so they can

01:04:08.480 try you twice easily well yeah so the the the people in vegas adelson etc said well we can't get the feds to

01:04:15.440 do it but we can get the guys in maryland and south carolina and a couple of different places to

01:04:20.800 pass laws against particular parts of the business and it didn't really make much waves until they

01:04:26.800 arrested a british guy who was the ceo of one of these publicly traded companies who was flying from

01:04:33.760 a shareholders meeting in los angeles through dallas forceworth on his way to costa rica and they

01:04:39.360 arrested him dallas forceworth and they gave the guy 17 months and all of a sudden all my clients

01:04:44.640 are calling i'm going dave i walk onto a football pitch in the uk i'm applauded i fly through newark

01:04:49.680 i'm arrested the hell do i do well you know i happen to know a lot of good extradition lawyers

01:04:56.800 in the uk it's in london it's the center because of all the russians in the early 90s uh so i just know

01:05:03.440 all those guys and so i said okay well let's organize the world into green uk red us but what is

01:05:12.000 canada what is australia what is france is that red green or yellow because we want to keep you

01:05:19.840 not being arrested and in the meantime your corporate lawyers can negotiate as to how you can

01:05:25.440 adjust your business because if you're caught then the power leverage turns and you're in what's called

01:05:32.560 what we used to call you're going to get spitzer after elliot spitzer what he would do

01:05:38.160 is he would go after somebody he'd arrest the ceo do the perp walk then he'd call up the board you

01:05:44.160 know an hour before the bell opened to go uh let's make a deal and they would throw the ceo under the 1.00

01:05:51.360 bus make a deal so they share the share price it worked perfectly until he went after aig and hank

01:05:57.680 greenberg said screw you i got the money i'm going to fight this and what's the one case that elliot 0.89

01:06:02.320 spitzer loss aig so don't put yourself in a spitzer and so that worked beautifully now what happened

01:06:12.080 was all the people who didn't do that

01:06:16.720 basically went out of business so all my clients not only didn't get arrested not only were they able

01:06:22.400 to negotiate on good terms they actually absorbed more market share uh from from the their their

01:06:28.400 competitors who didn't do that now i'm looking at a bit of deja vu with regards to the crypto picks

01:06:36.560 and shovels you know uh bitmax binance those are exchange issues with regards to any money laundering

01:06:47.120 they're going after or arthur hayes a bitmax for you know you haven't got proper kyc know your client

01:06:54.800 or aml any money laundering procedures in place and they're throwing the book at them much more than

01:07:00.640 they ever threw at you know deutsche bank who actually did money laundering and so they're going

01:07:06.400 after after them they're going after you know arithium for example for sec is this a security

01:07:14.400 or not so again just like our online gaming people if you another group of my clients are you know the key

01:07:23.120 founders and employees for the picks and shovels and so if you're an investor one of the things that

01:07:32.880 you want to do is short those who don't recognize that that you know that the the regulators are going

01:07:39.200 to come in and so if you've got a company that's going that's sitting there flying and has no

01:07:44.480 basically key employee backup plan that's a good short all right let's uh let's finish up on these

01:07:53.760 last few ones here i got one here from uh my friend josh renegade woodman says great show brother this is

01:08:00.000 top-notch david is there a recommended passport uh to have that offer the greatest flexibility

01:08:05.840 uh so he's american just for a frame on that okay so so the best in the world happens to be the irish

01:08:16.400 why well the irish is is part of the eu and under the treaty of rome you have access to 27 different

01:08:22.720 countries prior to the formation of the eu and the treaty of rome at the time the republic of ireland

01:08:28.480 was was formed they have something that none of the other eu countries have which is something called the

01:08:34.240 common travel arrangement which means that they have access to the uk which a spaniard or belgian

01:08:41.600 or an italian doesn't have likewise rich as a uk if you didn't happen to qualify for a greek passport

01:08:49.360 and you said i want to plant the seed and maybe you know bear the fruit of an eu passport down the road

01:08:54.800 as an eu national as a sorry uk national you can get a residence permit in ireland if you're a non-eu

01:09:04.080 national and you want that residence permit you're laying out a thousand year or a million euros for

01:09:09.360 for a residence permit but you're getting it because you hold a british passport and so you know so

01:09:17.360 that's probably a european one is a great one to have uh the american has taxation based on it when you

01:09:24.640 look at them you're looking for taxation um you're looking at military service if you've got

01:09:31.120 children and that's an issue so israeli citizenship very easy if you're jewish under the law of return

01:09:37.120 to make aliyah uh if you've got children that are going to men and women um they may want to be in

01:09:44.720 the in the israeli defense forces or they may not but just be aware that that comes along with that

01:09:50.480 uh so the us aside from eritrea which they always throw in there for reasons beyond me because there's no

01:09:56.880 equivalent to the irs and eritrea it's the only country which taxes you based on citizenship

01:10:04.240 today and there's some good practical reasons why that is there was actually an mp liberal mp from

01:10:09.760 de peon who suggested that we have a uh that i wrote a blog piece called monkey see monkey do

01:10:18.160 about canada adopting a citizenship-based taxation not really going to go anywhere

01:10:22.720 um years and years ago because i did so many americans expatriating and they said well when

01:10:30.160 y'all going to fall what the united states does and tax based on citizenship so i wrote our then

01:10:35.760 finance minister a guy named paul martin jr all canadians will know later prime minister suggesting

01:10:41.840 this why don't we go for a citizenship-based taxation they wrote back a very nice letter which i still have

01:10:47.760 which said such a change would be a fundamental and far-reaching change to the canadian tax system

01:10:52.720 and not one we ever intend on doing so never say never but you know there's some practical reasons

01:11:02.080 having to do with the us being the reserve currency canada australia sterling is no longer um there's no

01:11:10.480 one country which controls the euro um um josh if you want to hop on the zoom afterwards it's the

01:11:18.240 standard zoom link that we use for the uh q a's on on monday so we're going to be there in about 10

01:11:24.080 minutes or so so if you want to expand on that i'll uh i'll throw you in uh garen says our retirement

01:11:29.920 tax is generally better outside of the us i'm currently studying annuities and life insurance for

01:11:34.400 tax-free retirement in the us what's the word on that so one of the fire prevention methods is

01:11:41.120 something called uh private placement life insurance ppli um i would be careful to make

01:11:47.600 sure that you get a proper advice on that there's a bunch of ppli sales people out there that are

01:11:53.920 selling poor products uh there was just a very large uh award that swiss life which was which is

01:12:00.720 actually a major quite a major life insurance uh provider had to pay so if you're going to stick

01:12:06.160 with ppli as a as a solution uh make sure you get good opinions on that uh and that is it's it's not

01:12:14.720 it's being sold by a lot of people as you know it'll do wonders it'll put hair back on you know

01:12:21.040 it'll grow my head riches um but uh you know you know you know get ppli call your doctor if you're

01:12:28.720 still hard after four hours but you know it's it it's the kind of thing you want to be

01:12:33.600 careful about that it does work but it has to be done properly there are a lot of fees on that and

01:12:38.160 you want to compare that to some other solutions um you know americans uh rich again i i'm about as

01:12:46.480 close to being an american as you can be without having the big eagle passport um but uh you know

01:12:52.080 they've been pledging allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic since they

01:12:55.920 were five years old they've been sold on the bright shining city on the hill um you know they

01:13:02.400 just have something you know you can call it indoctrination or whatever that a lot of other

01:13:09.920 countries don't have um you know the mosaic versus the melting pot kind of concept so a lot of clients

01:13:17.840 i can't imagine not living without a u.s citizenship so i said well i you know i've lived my entire life

01:13:22.960 without a u.s citizenship i've been okay um well if you're really wealthy it's like well you know

01:13:28.160 most of the world billionaires have never had a u.s passport and they seem to be doing okay

01:13:32.720 and and so i think that most americans don't even have a passport period though yeah and so it's it's

01:13:39.360 one of the things about getting that distance overcoming that life inertia you know the newtonian

01:13:47.440 principle of body and motion tends to stay in motion so a lot of those clients who could never

01:13:52.240 conceive of a possible expatriation a couple of years ago are hiring me and they're saying quite

01:13:58.880 frankly you know i would have never known and it's a bit of a problem because if you're from the middle

01:14:05.200 east or from the asia or from latin america you know your family's been thinking about alternative

01:14:12.080 citizenships and residences for generations for canadians and americans it's a new topic

01:14:19.440 and so you want to educate yourself properly because there's a lot of kind of fly-by-night

01:14:25.920 sales people out there and and you have to understand is this advisor you know independent

01:14:32.240 i only get paid by my clients i don't take commissions from projects or governments or you

01:14:37.440 know the irish government doesn't pay me uh you know a a head count for every you know irish

01:14:43.280 grandparent or grandchild i bring in um and so my advice is you know i i would advise somebody

01:14:51.280 look at your family history first whereas the sales people go no i'm going to sell you a portuguese

01:14:55.680 golden visa or a maltese you know residence leading to a citizenship why well because it pays them

01:15:02.240 huge commissions they're not going to tell a brit about the common travel agreement because 0.56

01:15:07.200 they're going to want to commission off that million euro investment off the golden visa so

01:15:13.520 there's lots of opportunities out there but you really need to

01:15:17.120 you know especially when you've got the time you know rich and i were talking just before you start

01:15:23.040 you know just isn't anything you know low price speed quality pick two so if you've got the time

01:15:32.240 then you've got you can have the quality plan at the end of it all and you can have it a lower price

01:15:40.160 if you don't have the time if you're telling me i got to get out before a liquidity event you know on

01:15:45.040 thanksgiving day well then you're going to pay a higher price it's just you know the the way it is so

01:15:51.200 if you've got the time and you've got the runway definitely take advantage of of a long-term plan

01:15:57.280 all right so let's see this is the last one uh we have an anon uh donation that says if my parents

01:16:04.480 were born in haiti but renounced their haitian citizenship in the 90s to become u.s citizenship

01:16:10.160 citizens can i apply for a haitian passport well congratulations you're still haitian because

01:16:15.840 the united states has never required you to renounce your your other citizenship in order to become an

01:16:20.960 american so but it's a mythology that's out there so the your your parents can go and apply for their

01:16:27.120 haitian citizenship uh you as a as a child of a haitian i'm going to assume that you were born in

01:16:34.480 the united states to haitian born parents you would be entitled to to haitian passport also you're going

01:16:41.360 to have to apply for and register for it they're simply going to show their haitian birth registration

01:16:46.880 and apply for a new passport are there like with um like i know with the uk they've got a lot of

01:16:52.480 islands and colonies you know about the world but with um haiti i think it's a french colony like are

01:16:57.120 you able to get a french passport or like any other country in that sense or is that like kind of like

01:17:03.040 backdooring it through like a few other steps martinique is a is a french colony haiti had a very famous

01:17:12.400 slave revolution and became an independent country in the 1700s so while it's a a french 0.96

01:17:21.280 former colony it's an independent country got it um so some so if you look in the caribbean you'll

01:17:27.920 have independent countries you'll have what are called british overseas territories like bermuda

01:17:33.520 cayman turks and caicos and anguilla uh montserrat you will then have dutch colonies like the

01:17:41.440 abc islands um and and you'll have uh french colonies now the dutch and the french are considered like

01:17:49.840 provinces of holland or uh or france the bots the british overseas territories those are semi-independent

01:17:58.880 countries uh and one of the things i actually did the test case on this um is that you can qualify for

01:18:06.320 something called a british overseas territory citizenship dash bermuda cayman turks whatever

01:18:12.960 and if you have that you are entitled to register for a full uk passport that is different than a

01:18:21.680 status called a belonger status or they in cayman they call your your caymanian or bermudian those are

01:18:29.280 are different statuses and again you know if you're going to be looking at those jurisdictions

01:18:34.880 again you'll want proper advice so that you know what you're what you're getting okay all right

01:18:40.080 let's wrap it up on that note um to kind of sign off i've already put your website in the description

01:18:45.520 of this video so if you guys are watching it it's it's already there um for somebody to contact you

01:18:51.920 what sort of net worth do they need uh for it to be worth their while to use your services to help

01:18:56.800 them relocate well if they've got a potential lineage citizenship um just if they to determine

01:19:04.720 whether they qualify or not uh is uh is free for example uh if we if they do qualify then that first

01:19:12.320 stage can we get a genealogist to prove it that's going to cost them about five thousand dollars uh if so

01:19:18.880 then and if we apply let's say it's going to cost by the government fees etc kind of twenty thousand

01:19:24.800 dollars so the question is is that eu citizenship worth twenty thousand dollars to that individual

01:19:31.680 they may not be high net worth but they may have a child who like uh christian pushulis is going to

01:19:37.120 play in you know uh european soccer um or they may want to do something you know that way um so you

01:19:46.400 can have somebody who's you know middle class uh lower upper class that can do it for the client who's going

01:19:52.960 to um you know leave their current tax system you know you're looking at kind of it making sense um for

01:20:02.480 having at least you know a two million say that the chap that mentioned about costa rica that's a

01:20:12.160 a client again very straightforward uh client for me uh where i really you know earn my uh my keep is for

01:20:20.720 for people who are higher net worth or or who are leaving jurisdictions where it's much more

01:20:26.160 difficult quite frankly canadians are easy for me americans are a lot more a lot trickier um and we

01:20:33.600 need a bigger team of people and the more complicated their stuff so if you're somebody who says you know

01:20:42.720 all i have in the world is everything's on a portfolio and i can tell you exactly what it's

01:20:46.960 worth by firing up my bloomberg that's different than somebody who's got you know home second home

01:20:54.000 part of a family property privately held company portfolio 401k charitable remainder trust they've got

01:21:01.040 all kinds of different stuff you know that client you know is going to really need some sophisticated

01:21:06.880 help that you know that i would bring in on this team that sounds good so there you have it guys i hope

01:21:12.320 you enjoyed the cast give it a uh big thumbs up um and if you have any experience feel free to uh

01:21:18.240 chop it up in the chat after the video's uh done um dave i dropped the uh link to join me on the zoom

01:21:25.200 in the private chat so just open that up in a separate separate window and i'll join you there in like

01:21:28.960 a minute okay we'll see you there great sounds good thanks all right see you guys bye

Playing to Win - March 02, 2022

038 - Immigration & Tax Advisor Shares How To Reduce Taxes By Relocation

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