Diversify Your Citizenship NOW! Second Passports Explained

Transcript

welcome to bankless where today we're exploring the frontier of second passports and second citizenships this is Ryan Sean Adams I'm here with David Hoffman and we're here to help you become more bankless there's a rabbit hole we're diving into today given the state of the world the question is is it a good idea to diversify your citizenship we're talking about your nation state citizenship of course and we've seen some recent crypto hostility in the west question is what if it gets worse should you have a backup plan a place to immigrate Andrew Henderson on the podcast today he's an expert in this a few questions we ask number one why should people think about a second or third citizenship what are the benefits number two what are the most crypto-friendly jurisdictions what does

he recommend number three what's an exit tax what does that mean and why did our guest choose to renounce his US citizenship number four how much does all of this cost and how do you do it how do you go get a second passport it's worth asking the question why are we doing this episode my answer for this is uh because the idea of being like Sovereign as an individual from your own nation state that you're born in is interesting and without endorsing it we want to understand this like activity that one can do there's a book that we have cited in the past many times uh the sovereign individual and there's a lot of content in there that aligns with some of the ideas here uh that you are you are a sovereign individual and you can choose to be like independent from

the nation state that you just happened to be born in uh and so this is what we are exploring as an idea here today it's just worth knowing that the strategies that our guest Andrew illustrates on this episode is a possibility for you whether you enjoy it or not so that's kind of the motivation here we're here to learn yeah and let me expand on what David said just just give you guys a trigger warning and then a disclaimer so the trigger warning is this this episode might rub some of you the wrong way you might hear some of the claims Andrew's making and and just think oh my God this this is Peak selfishness this is unpatriotic this is just another example of the uh the the the rich Elites getting on the lifeboats and leaving everyone else behind so we talked about some of those critiques toward the end

of the episode and I think David you and I will be talking about some of those critiques in the debrief that we're about to have too so if this is not your thing of course feel free to skip the episode there's lots of episodes on the bankless podcast uh and then lastly a disclaimer none of this is an endorsement of nomad Capital Services um this is the company that Andrew founded we don't know what they're like neither David or myself have used them do your own research price it out if this is something you're interested in they just the guys talk to that we that we discovered this episode is really it's just like a case for a second citizenship not a case for a specific service provider so with that said let's get to the episode with Andrew Henderson but before we do we want to thank the

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countries around the world I'm actually not sure where he is today maybe we'll ask him that question he's also the founder of nomad capitalist which is a company an organization that helps people maximize their freedom by getting multiple citizenships and passports and that's what we're here to talk about today Andrew welcome to bankless it's so good to be with you and hopefully reduce their taxes too because they're going crazy in some of these places but it's it's good to be with they really are and H you know some there's some crypto hostile jurisdictions out there too that we probably want to uh talk to you about because we got a crypto audience but I have to ask the question so what citizenship are you logging in from today here uh like what jurisdiction well I'm sitting in uh in Ireland doing a meetings with some people who work for

me this actually interesting I was on the radio in Ireland a couple days ago and she's like well how do I move somewhere and get a citizenship I'm not an Irish citizen so you want to go some places as a tourist you have a residence permit in some places maybe some places you go you are a citizen you want to mix it up a little bit and you want to as I say go where you're treated best if citizenship is uh is is the best in a certain place that's one you want to hold if it's better to be a resident uh then that's better you know better to be a tourist sometimes that's better in places like in Europe go as a tourist so uh I am in Ireland we've got some great people here does that mean are you a citizen of uh Ireland then Andrew as

well no okay so this is resident tourist okay do you consider yourself like uh do you identify with any country that you are a citizen in particular or are you more of just a a a global citizen you're a citizen of the world don't actually have any sort of meaningful alignment with any country I mean I have five citizenships I um might you know work on on one or two more um certainly there's ones that I've spent time in that I've come to appreciate the people I also understand um you know for me I think you should judge yourself by your accomplishments and and your identity and when I look at you know we've got a YouTube channel with about 2700 videos on it um I've been doing this for a long time and you know one of the biggest retorts we get from people who uh watch

our stuff for the first time is oh well if the US is so bad you know why are people moving here well the difference between a multi-millionaire leaving and people you know coming who are in search of you know kind of low wage you know service work a lot of respect for people who come and want to work hard but you know it's it's not a onetoone comparison uh and so for me I think if you're at a level where you are an entrepreneur you are successful you're firing at all cylinders it's probably harder to be identified with a lot of places that's how I look at it I mean I can go to any country no matter how much I like it and say yeah there's still a lot of people that I probably don't really identify with that much and so um for me uh you know being born kind of

the edge of the United States um I I find it hard to understand how you know how is it someone born right over there is Canadian and I'm American I it's just a very weird concept that I think people in the bankless audience understand probably yeah yeah I think they do I think we have um some Nomads in the in the bankless audience like but both from a like they travel all over the world they you know don't necessarily um have one residence as their their home but but certainly we're um Financial Nomads in that we have like already exited our existing Financial system to some extent kind of the the Fiat system and now we're doing more on crypto maybe just to give you a quick overview of of the audience and who you're kind of addressing today so um a lot of people

listening are they're definitely into crypto right and so they probably have assets on the on on the blockchain so that that they actually own that's kind of in the the jurisdiction the property rights system of of the blockchain so call them kind of nomad investors and they certainly know about Concepts like tail risk events they they they know and acknowledge we've done so much content on this Empires Fiat systems they they all have finite lifespans right so they don't take it for granted that the system that they were born into is going to be the system that uh is um alive and well in the future and um you know also also I should say probably most of them almost all of them I would say uh don't have a backup to their Fiat citizenship

yet probably most listeners of Bank list I'm just assuming here we've not done the surveys but they they probably only have one citizenship so David I know you have one citizenship right you're you're American I have two citizenships but it's only by virtue of the fact that I was actually born across the border as you said on the on the Canadian side and my mother's American so I I managed to kind of get to uh in the process but I haven't gone through the you know the process of collecting it I think you're probably addressing a lot of people here who are like what I mean I was born a citizen of EX country why do I need a second citizenship and there's also I would say a group that you're addressing of um like there's definitely Millionaires and billionaires that listen to bank list like there just is

um they've done well in crypto they've done done well in life but there's a lot of people who haven't made it financially yet that listen to uh Bank list as well they haven't achieved Financial Freedom and so they're probably thinking like cool I mean the rich people get multiple citizenship but this sounds like some kind of yacht club that I'm not a part of I can't join anyway that's some context in terms of who who you're addressing on the podcast today is that helpful and I've seen your show for years and I I think uh you know it's it's an important message I mean I've worked with a lot of folks over the years at Nomad cist who who are in crypto it's a great audience I mean for me I think why you want to have a second citizenship and I would even argue now

you probably need a third citizenship for me I kind of want to have Plan F G maybe even H uh maybe that's a little bit of extrem but for the same reasons you want to be in crypto I mean the government's done a pretty bad job managing the money supply look at inflation look at all the things I mean look at the countries that we're from and all the upheaval these days where people can't afford rent they can't afford groceries and that's going to have meaningful consequences on people who are citizens of those countries why because if you want to live overseas if you're an American you already are are wed to the US tax system so you need the second passport to potentially exit the US and if you're in crypto unfortunately it's harder to get out of the tax system while staying a citizen I guess there's

places like Puerto Rico but you know it's harder to get out the US tax system than it would be for an entrepreneur because you're engaged in what they consider generally speaking a passive activity uh passive income for Americans abroad is not taxed that favorably so you know having a second citizenship number one allows you get to get out of that system I think Canada or Australia is slowly moving if maybe not the front door through the back door to a kind of system where hey you can't leave um you know Australia was gave some guidance last year uh basically I'll shorthand it if you don't live over overseas the way we want you to yeah maybe you'll remain an Australian taxpayer all right and so wait a second I was born in Australia I lived there and paid taxes I I wasn't

but let's just say that's is you you you pay your taxes for as long as you can on Australia and then you say you know what I'm sick of this I'm going to leave there is going to be an exit tax to get out which is actually why if you're just starting out if you're preot club levels you're actually in a good position to go and do something before they get you for a big chunk on the way out but I mean for the same reasons the government shouldn't be trusted to do anything else you want to have second citizenships and what I've argued and this is one of the hard things for people who are new to this concept to understand I'd rather be St Lucian than American if I can make money on my own terms what do I need the United States for the US US citizenship

is great that I can move to the I can live in the United States I can get a job that requires me to be a US citizen and I can work physically on us soil well increasingly I bet any of us could go and work somewhere else in Dubai we could get a job there or somewhere else or we could get a remote job from a US company doesn't care where we live NAD capitalist hires people all over the world we don't have any Americans which maybe tells you something about the way the world's going but we don't have any Americans but um you know we we we could theoretically hire an American if they didn't live in the US and if you're in crypto and you make your own money what do you need you know so I I'd rather be St Lucian because guess what St Luci is

not going to impose a bunch of dumb regulations they're not going to try and tax me if I don't live there if I'm you know St Lucian I can also choose live in St kits and they don't tax me even if I do live there um you know so I want more freedom of movement I want a passport that's agnostic I mean look at the Julian Assange news in you know more recent times uh you know what I'm a former US citizen uh I'm just as proud of not having to be associated with that Kur fuffle uh and not having to have that on my hands um you know so this is why you want a second passport you're detaching from the system the same way you did from gr I love how you call it Fiat citizenship I mean it's uh I I just think that

economically um and from a freedom perspective countries like the us are going to be much more aggressive in the years to come at taking your money and taking away your freedoms we could go into any of that but that's that's why you need it and I I I don't even think two is enough I listen I you should get your Canadian passport but Canada the US have become more like the same country I mean Justin Trudeau Jag meat sing up there um it's it's not heading in the right direction yeah they they they certainly feel like a a very similar country but so let's talk a bit more about why people are getting second citizenships and and third citizenships and you listed a whole bunch of reasons I I just want to set the context for this so some people hearing that might be tearing you on and being like hell

yeah Andrew that's right like we're Nomads we want to live in different jurisdictions others might be listening to that and like might be squirming a little bit because they they might be um thinking about well is this just running away is this like unpatriotic that kind of thing we'll get to those critiques at the end I I don't want to address that yet but like we'll get to those uh critiques for people who are interested in it what what you basically said kind of reminds me of a of of a book long uh hallowed by you know folks in crypto called the sovereign individual I'm sure have you read this book yeah okay so the basic premises uh you know governments May in the future um be provide a deterior quality of goods for their citizens and kind of like a economic mix that just like isn't worthwhile and

they'll begin to kind of capture their citizens and entrap them in in the systems like Fiat is maybe one example of that right and there's this classic like Choice uh type of theory and like I forget who wrote this in the 1970s but basically if if you are responding as an individual to a deteriorating set of goods and services you have three options right you can use your voice try to change that and so this would the example of this would be political action right um getting involved in politics trying to you know move the system in a different direction uh or loyalty so you've got voice loyalty as another example which is you just are remain loyal to the system that is not providing you you the benefit you just kind of like take it on

the chin and uh you know keep at it or exit is the third option so these are your options voice loyalty and exit and with no mad capitalist what you're doing with the second passport is having the option to exit which is like a valid Choice when there is a deterioration in the goods and services and this is very much what we do if say a um you know your ISP is not providing you good service and like the internet sucks and you switch to an ISP that does provide good service and you're getting uh you know value for that dollar so exit is really the choice that that you're emphasizing do you have any Reflections on just like that uh in in general before we further establish why people want a second citizenship listen I I I went to a restaurant not that long ago

and it used to be one of my favorite restaurants and I went and they were always so nice to me and I don't know what happened to the the the one or two guys who were always so nice but now they're not so nice and the food's not quite as good so guess what I'm probably not going to go back at least not as often and so I'm exercising my power of choice he's fleeing the restaurant he's running away like a coward from the Indian restaurant it's a travesty what no it just it sucks and I decided not to go back um and I think you know I look at this much like relationships one of the faults that I mean I don't know if it's a mistakes that I've made in the past in you know kind of personal relationships and and probably with some

employees too is you spend too much time like you see the good in them and you want it to work out I'm a person you know I'm successful I want other people to be successful I see you know hey here's your skill let me help you and sometimes they've got a bad attitude or sometimes they won't you know put in the effort or whatever they just can't maybe you you overestimated their skill skills and you keep like lecturing them like okay like I'm going to give you like eventually it loses its input uh and it's not going to work or you have a relationship where it's just like you're not going to change the person uh due to any number of factors and I would argue it's increased competition among countries as the sovereign individual talked about you know I I we have an event called Nomad

capitalist live it's hosted in qual and poor Mia where I spend my Winters I've been going there for 10 years it is as good as many US cities in my opinion one of the probably the best value city in the world you would not think about going there 25 years ago never would have thought about it the reason you don't go there today is because 25 years ago isn't enough time to build a brand like the United States that people flock to like Coca-Cola so maybe 75 more years from that they'll have that Coca-Cola like brand and people will realize Malaysia punch is well above its weight but it hasn't developed that brand yet and they haven't probably done a good enough job marketing it and talking about how free it is and everything else but um to me you go to the places where they offer

you the opportunity and you walk away from you know the relationships the bad relationships I mean how many we we've all been in some relationship could be a friendship could be a love relationship where the person thought they were going to shame you or manipulate you into doing what you wanted to right and some of us probably stuck around longer than we should have and like try to like come to some agreement like the political process you're talking about we try to come to some agreement with the people and it's like no this person is a manipulative person they're they're not looking to come to an agreement they're looking to dominate they're looking to win they're looking to be selfish and have it their way that's the US and by the way I I got some comments from people that if you have the passport you

should pay that's the privilege so what you're seeing is a shifting of and is of of obligation uh onto citizenship where it used to be benefits back in the 90s when koal poor wasn't the competition of the Western World when Dubai wasn't the competition of the Western World when nobody was moving to Panama to retire when everyone just kind of stayed in the Western countries and they had all the power yeah citizenship is all about you're one of us look at all the Privileges you get now that there's competition now people are leaving they want to beat you over the head with it and so to me that's an abusive relationship would you stay in that in your personal life well you know in your personal life you have sex with a person

you have a nice you know you you talk about you you don't have any of that with the government you just pay them and they shame you and bully you and then it's you're running away like a coward well you know you're one of 330 million people in the United States if the culture has shifted doesn't matter what you think because there's probably already a place where they agree with what you want and these uh these I'll tell you what I'm going to say just for people who are watching the airpod pro they really was a real downgrade from the regular airpods they fit in so nicely these airpod Pros I'll tell you what they got to bring Steve J fall out your ear they're no they consistently fall out you could get multiple sizes you know

there's like some size Choice there I got some thing it goes in the bin I don't know where the this is my Larry David ask ramblings on airpods well okay so let Le let's talk some more about the second citizenship you like one one point just to reinforce what you're saying for for a minute again we'll get to some criticisms toward the end of the episode but just um there was a time in a place where uh the US very much was that um upstart country to flee to it's a country that's very much formed by immigrants from the old world to the new world like the land of opportunity meme that was that was very much born in the US so at some level this type of countries competing for Citizens and talents on its good and service goods and services and on its opportunity has

always been in play right and so it remains in play right now but let's talk about specific so why should an individual listening to this who has a citizen ship in one jurisdiction why do they need a second citizenship or like what factors go into what are what are the common reasons so you mentioned a few and then I just want to dwell dwell on this a little bit is it about a backup plan is it about like if really hits the fan in the country that I'm in and I need to pick up and move then I already have that way established is it about tax like lowering my tax burden is it about um additional property rights or or culture like what are the the main reasons when you talk to people at Nomad that people uh like

why they they go through the process and the pain of getting a second citizenship you make a great point just real quick on the on the part of people moved if you're from the US or Canada people fled where they were from uh to move to where you live now at some point and it's an issue of Empires Never Last Forever um so what I think that's one reason why you want a second citizenship if you're in the dying you know last gasps of an Empire that sounds to me like a tiger you backed into a corner I mean they're not going to just oh you know what we had our time and uh okay that's great uh now China's going to run things so okay everybody uh you know you're free to do what you want of course they're not going to do that um so again I mean a

lot of the people we work with are from countries that are heavy-handed uh if you're from lonstein I'm a little bit less worried than if you're from the United States I mean I I would want to be protected no matter what but you know l i mean I've interviewed you know presidents of countries like Georgia you know 4 million people he's like you know when you when you start to shake things up people come up and tell you cuz it's a small enough place you fired someone they know they're pissed off like you know you get more of it is anyone really think that the US or Germany or the UK or Australia that anyone's listing I mean look at how many countries are now moving their Capital into these brand new middle of nowhere areas like South Africa has Australia has now Indonesia uh Egypt where I just was they're

building a brand new capital why one of the things that they talk about is they want want to be far away from the people they don't want the protest to come to their door you know tarer square and in Cairo back in the Arab Spring that's pretty close to the government if the government's 80 mil East hey all is well let the peasants Riot so you want to be protected from that that they can't do whatever is heavy-handed uh I prefer a plan a personally but I understand not everyone's ready for a plan a so that's Plan B uh if Plan B is I like where I'm living I'm happy to pay tax and we see in the tax journals all the time they're coming after people with crypto more and more that's I mean I I love everything crypto stands for my one frustration is

you know the people who have billions of dollars at their disposal to go up to people who don't pay their taxes whether you think it's fair or not that's their job and and they're looking increasingly at crypto so if you're willing to live in a place and you accept the tax rate that comes with that and you accept that there could be an unrealized capital gains tax to pay when you decide to leave and that the lower the better then fine have a second passport and I would say logically you want to start spending time either in that country or you want to have a residence permit somewhere as well and you want to spend time there because to your point I mean if we all said I'm going to leave when things get bad enough have you been watching the news the last 25 years I mean there was

no time in there that you would have said hey back in 1999 I would have said this is bad enough but you know we're the frog and the Bing pot you know we've grown used to the fact oh the government reading my mail I saw that came out the other day in the news uh they're listening to work you know whatever you know we get accustomed to things and our freedoms get eroded slowly and we just say all right I'm never going to leave so My Philosophy is if you if you say all right I'm going to get a residence permit in some country and I'm going to go there on winter break or I'm going to go there on summer break or I'm going to spend my w whatever you want to do I'm going to be comfortable maybe you buy a property even so I own a property I have

a residence permit maybe I've got a citizenship or I'm working towards citizenship something like that uh I'm going to be better equipped to leave if I'm taking that plan B route uh because I'm going to be comfortable where I'm going I think that's a big psychological point and that's why we have our event in qual and Po and not you know Orlando or something so I want people to come and see what it's like oh this Malaysia this is this is pretty good this is pretty livable uh what a great city um I think the biggest problem that people in the western world have is you know they're from the US and you know they went to the UK well the UK is essentially the same country it's trending in the same you know bad Direction um you know if you haven't been to some places that you're not

almost uncomfortable with you probably haven't seen all the opportunities that are out there I could afford to live in Monaco um it doesn't work for me um I could afford to live in you know Paris or something that's not what I'm interested in I want to be in places that are moving in the right direction and that probably means places that have some more room to grow that means a bit more emerging places is where I'm more personally free the taxes are lower or non-existent and it just feels better and so if you are going to be forced to hey things are terrible in the US go to some place you've never heard of before you're going to push back on that so I think having the plan B is the first place to start get comfortable with one or more places start traveling if you

have dual citizenship and you haven't claimed your your other passport get it see what it likes see what it feels like to travel on that Canadian passport in your case um because hey you could decide not to be a US citizen you could still come to the US in all likelihood as a Canadian pretty easily you could travel without some of the tax restrictions you could live overseas without those restrictions uh the embassies are nicer to you so see what that feels like to get ready for me you know I decided to move overseas immediately I think you know you learn a lot by doing that um I ultimately you know got comfortable enough to give up my citizenship and um you know I think plan a is the better way to go because you

know when something bad happens it's too late uh Robert kosaki came to one of our events and he said where can you get in three days well part of Robert kiyosaki's plan to your earlier point is hey I've got a jet ready to Charter right what if you're fighting to to fly commercial you couldn't fly commercial during the covid for example if you're Canadian you couldn't leave you could only fly um if you weren't vaccinated you could only fly um private so like my thought is is when things get too bad there's times when they when they pass a new tax law and you have seven days before the law kicks in if you're still here it affects you I mean there's literally been the case in some places they just it comes up nobody

thought it was going to pass you got seven days are you going to relocate your entire life in seven days no are you going to like move when the next pandemic happens or move when the next whatever happens probably not you're going to sit there and you're going to just kind of you know okay it's not that much worse so I want you to have multiple places you're comfortable with so like Ryan uh said we have a pretty wide audience here at Bist we have uh billionaires who live inside of the US who have like already made it but perhaps they only have one citizenship and then we also have listeners who intend to become millionaires at the very least uh but also but I'm going to go ahead and guess at the general um all the general case for most of them most listeners is that they haven't really

considered this possibility uh and maybe it's because they haven't had the motivation to yet they haven't like decided that it's worth the the the time the resources the re the research to in order to make this happen maybe you could also give the case about why this might become more relevant in the future why the motivation to become you know dual citizen triple citizen uh is going to become more and more useful as time goes on like is this crescendoing is this getting worse what are the catalysts for this well my parents and I we talked about this around the kitchen table when I was in the late 90s when I was a kid and my father would say look here's the economic freedom rankings the US just went down one or here's you know we would he' read different statistics we think the US is like the 25th freest

economy in the world so that's not Somalia levels let's not de let's not you know devolve oursel to like well they just moved to Somalia um but there's 24 places including some ex Soviet Union states that are now more free it's got the 44th best passport according to the index that we put out um I mean go where you're treated best is you find the best you don't settle for 44th place um you you you deserve better and so you know I've been talking about this stuff since 2012 and I will tell you over the last what is that 12 years ago I went to public school it was hard for me uh you know 12 years uh it is a lot there's a lot more westerners who get it uh we have a lot more people coming for Plan B and we've had some of

the uh you know sentim millionaire and billionaire people coming and saying I don't just want a second passport I want every passport I can get my hands on and they'll usually walk it back to like 4 when they realize what's involved and the work and all that but I mean the trend is dramatically up um I we get people all the time I never thought I would call you it was kind of a fun thing to watch on YouTube I don't know where my country has gone uh I never thought they would lock us inside I never thought um I couldn't leave my country or come back to my country I never thought they would think that two-third of my wealth should be taxed I never thought this I never thought that I think it's only going to get worse um um quite frankly I think more countries

are going to tax people the way the US does to where you basically can't leave without giving up your citizenship and again I think that goes back to people are hurting and so the guy who wants to live overseas with his crypto Millions is not going to be very sympathetical political Target and so the best system there is to exit if your government comes and says hey you know what we need some extra cash and we figured out that even though an extra $123 million a year isn't that much extra money for the budget doesn't move the needle it sells politically and hey some crypto fat cats that we don't really understand and they bought some coin I don't know how it works they're probably Laing money yeah take their money so I can get my free health care there's going to be more of

that I mean there wasn't that desperation 25 or 30 years ago in the Western countries but there increasingly is and so you want a passport to be able to remove yourself now if you choose to move overseas now the residence Andor passport reduces your taxes now and I think the one thing your audience can take away is if you're trying to become a millionaire or if you're trying to make more money no matter where you're at many countries have an exit tax and so if you leave a country like Canada or Australia or if you give up US citizenship they're going to say how much unrealized capital gain do you have and we're going to tax you on that because hey we're not going to chase you down we're not going to we're not going to have any mechanism to know when you sell that stuff in the future so you

could just pay us on the paper gain now and there was just actually a Supreme Court ruling on something kind of related where they're like yeah we can we can bring out wealth taxes we can tax you like that yeah no problem so I I I guess I guess I say it this way very simply I prefer everybody leave right now lower your taxes and make sure that you're somewhere safe when the first starts flying or somewhere multiple places safe uh the way I have but I think that you know the ability to turn on or turn off a residence or citizenship when they come down the pike and say hey effective next week or next month we're doing this thing you don't have time to respond to get a second citizenship so my my initial point was I

feel like I'm Noah building the arc here people laughed in 2012 what does an American need another another passport some still laugh now um but I feel like you know it's going to be only become more and more and I don't say this because I hate the US um I could I could probably run many other businesses that actually made more money this is a relatively Niche business we're very good at it but you know I could find something else to sell if I wanted to um I've run other businesses in the past uh I fundamentally have believed my entire life that the Western world is going the wrong direction and I just think it's a good thing to be prepared and I think that if you're in crypto you're going to have to take a a hit of one to 5% to protect the other 95 to 99% because I

just don't think that your government's going to play fair you're not a politically sympathetic you know group neither am I um and they're just going to be more and more desperate for cash and um you want to be ready I think people can kind of understand that narrative I I I've always uh considered my citizenship of you like Canada and the US as as kind of an asset and um like for for most of my life and I still I think I net believe that but there have been times you like could just speak on behalf of crypto natives where you're like wow uh look at this list of blocked countries for this crypto airdrop or this defi tool that I want to use it's like Iran North Korea and the United States of America and you start to kind of Wonder like am I the one

living in a financial PR like prison so you're telling me if I use a VPN from another country or am I citizen in another country then I can access this airdrop free money basically but because I'm in the US then I can't these types of things are like I I guess part of the the Frog boiling maybe mini wakeup calls let's call them but um let's talk uh actually I I just want to emphasize what you just said because I think a lot of people are actually unaware of exit taxes because they've not even considered exiting you you you mentioned Canada you mentioned Australia you mentioned the us just like can you clarify once again what an exit tack tax actually is so if I choose to leave the US does that mean if I assume residency in another place or if I get it a second

passport uh then am I taxed at some level or do I have to actually renounce my citizenship and you said the exit tax is a tax on unrealized gains let's just make sure people are clear on what an exit tax actually is and uh the Imp lications of it and how you sort of like plan for that this is the reason I think plan a is better because if you're planning and becoming wealthier you know it's always easier to say hey 25% will be more comfortable when I have more money 25% or whatever the rate is is always 25% it's going to sting um so what it happens is when you change your tax residence status so getting a second passport doesn't change things now I have seen with some of the you mentioned the crypto air drops where someone gets

a second passport and I guess some of those project they said hey if you can show us the other passport we're cool with that I'm not sure if that applies to all of them but I know we've had that call where it wasn't we don't give it to Americans it was you need to have some other passport uh bank accounts don't work that way if you're an American you're an American you're an American you could have 100 other passports so the getting the second passport doesn't change the tax status doesn't trigger the exit tax if you were to move overseas as an American that also generally won't trigger it now you could go to Puerto Rico and there's some interesting you know things with how that works and that could kind of be a pre-exit tax plan um but then you're living in Puerto Rico um and you've

actually got to live there so let's just take that out of the equation when you end your tax residence in a country as an American as a US citizen or a long-term green card holder you have to do that by renouncing or relinquishing uh everywhere else you just become a tax non-resident so if you leave Canada and you go through all the proper channels now they are checking more and it is more difficult than it was 20 years ago cuz more people are doing it uh but if you go through all the proper channels if you cut your ties if you minimize your time in the country if you do all the things you're supposed to do you're out of the tax system and now you can keep your Canadian passport and you can go and live wherever you want now if you going to live in France

then obviously you're going to become a tax resident of France so you either want to move to a tax friendly or taxfree country or you want to move to a series of countries and then have a tax friendly tax residence where you spend let's say a month in the in the tax res and then you spend a couple months each and the rest anyway that's that that's where you're going so obviously you can't choose anywhere to go cuz other countries you could become a tax resident as well but just leaving where you're from Canada Australia Germany what have you keep the passport leave the tax residents you'll have certain restrictions on how much time you can go back and visit all that but any country with an exit tax they're basically going to say yeah what haven't we taxed they're all a little bit different uh

but the general principle is well you're no longer our tax taxpayer so you're like you're dead to us so pay us what you owe and then go and be free and so generally that's a capital gains tax rate if you're an American it takes giving up your citizenship to do that you can lower the tax burden by living in Puerto Rico you can lower it if you're an entrepreneur or running a business by living overseas uh but if you want to fully get rid of the tax burden you have to renounce US citizenship because they has what's called citizenship based taxation a Canadian will pay tax is long as they live in Canada it's called residential based taxation you're taxed based on where you live most Canadians do ironically live in Canada most

Australians live in Australia so the US has the disadvantage I think other countries might eventually follow suit in some way we're already kind of seeing moves in that direction but it's about changing your tax residence and when basically once you're off their books they're like well hey I mean you've if you didn't leave you would have had this this capital gain acur so it could be an interesting company companies we had a guy uh he hired us twice and the value I don't remember how much but the value of his company went up dramatically where he was actually raising money where it was easily provable what his company's worth he couldn't afford to renounce because he just didn't have enough money to pay the the capital gains bill because he couldn't sell any more shares yet he would be Bill charged with his

company worth you know hundreds of millions of dollars uh he would have had like a $100 million bill in no way to raise the cash so he was he was literally couldn't um and and so you know that's why I think you want to you know get out first if you're in the US there's a $2 million marker that as long as you've been tax compliant and you haven't had like a ridiculously high income and and a and a federal tax to match uh you get up to 2 million so that's kind of the marker so if you're you know you get up to two two million uh you know like um of gains that are basically taxfree if you renounce or if you exit you're not you're not a covered EXP Patriot right so you're not and so yeah you're not liable for all the all the Hoopa if

you're over the 2 million you still get an exemption and it goes up every year um but yeah I mean it's better to be under $2 million in the US and that's a big decision because you're choosing to renounce now if you're Canadian you know they probably let you come back if you choose to be St Lucian or something and you have to go and get a Visa you know I mean you know it's not guaranteed right there's no guaranteed right to return to the US so I mean that's why I think getting comfortable we've had people come to us who are in crypto hey I've got $600,000 okay find a few places that are affordable get comfortable with them see how you feel living outside of the United States and when you hit that $2 million number then you know make a decision but don't get to2 million

dollars they like holy cow do I want to never come back to this place I mean you're not going to make that decision yeah the the US kind of like I guess presses you into a very high stakes sort of uh you like situation not only do they tax you uh if you are res pres of another country but kind of like the the exit tax and exit Criterion is is somewhat harsh and I'm not sure what it looks like to ever try to change your mind if you kind of like exit the US and you want to come back if that's an option but I would imagine that's not an option it's right so I mean I I did renounce my citizenship in 2017 um I mean I I could come back the same way anybody else could now I I'm I'm I've got a loud mouth and I make

YouTube videos about how uh you know we Host this event and we talk about I think the us is going the wrong direction so you know the people who issue visas are humans I I probably have a lesser chance than someone who just you know quietly you have to wait line basically in the immigration right but the point if I would right if I don't have an Irish passport or a Canadian passport or whatever there's 42 or so you could just come back uh even if you can come back there's conditions have you been to Iran have you been to Cuba have you you know done this have you done that um but if I ever wanted to move back yeah I mean I can get an E2 Visa um which means starting a business but they they don't have to give you that and depending which passport you

have you know they may be harder um I could get a green card by investing but now I'm a taxpayer again I guess you could get married to someone but so I mean all these things have some level of human involvement I know people who've renounced and they don't have great passports and they get us visas and they came back one guy came back and his wife gave birth in the US so all of his other children would also be American because his first one was born before he renounced and they literally came back to give birth on us soil just so their kids were equal with the citizenship uh but he had renounced and he and his Filipino wife got visas uh but anyway um you know if the issue always is are you going to be a sympathetic person when you go in

and say hey I'm getting married to an American can I please apply for a green card you know I mean depends on where you go depends on where you live there's a whole lot of factors but I mean they don't have to say yes to anybody I mean they literally said no to the guys helping them like in Afghanistan during the war the translators oh you met a guy from Al-Qaeda once yeah sorry you can't come to our country stay stay there and die you think they're going to you know you think if they do that to their own allies in a war they're not going to some of them aren't going to be like this guy renounced with his crypto Millions let's let him come back no I mean there's no way to reclaim citizenship is the bottom line got it so I think I in a few countries there are

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want to Think Through the you know the plan a or the plan B but they're definitely interested in kind of a second uh passport somewhere there's tons of countries right so like what what should they choose what's kind of like on your top five list of uh countries or jurisdictions that that might be fit for a second passport and then like what does that even look like like how do you apply does that cost money like how much just shade in some details here I mean we've helped people get a couple dozen different countries past ports so there's a couple main things to do the first thing that I would check is what's called citizenship by descent do I have an ancestor so in your case some people actually you know their their mother was born in Canada and they didn't really realize that but

like in Canada if you're born there you're a citizen same as in the US same as in Mexico I think we had a guy once his parents were born in Mexico he didn't realize he's eligible to be Mexican um so that's kind of an an extreme version of citizenship by descent what most people do is they go through their grandparents um so if your grandparents are Irish for examp example or if you have great grandparents who are Italian Slovakia open it up you can go back even further now so certain countries go back certain you know distances a lot of them are in Europe but we had we had a guy who his dad was from St kit andas which actually has a passport by investment program but his dad was actually born there so he could get that or you know they're Mexican or

they're you know whatever so Latin America and Europe have been the big ones for us where go back to the family tree and if someone was a citizen every country has their own rules of how far back you can go um you know we're going to charge you for that you know if we if we do that for you we're going to go through and find your documents maybe in some cases we have to go digging through a church we seem to get kind of the complicated cases because we're a bit more expensive than some of the local lawyers but we get like you know we do the cases they can't handle like what we're digging through archives that no one Whatever could figure out so that's the first thing to look at now it might take you I I think I had a I knew a guy

recently it took him four years to get his Italian citizenship by descent so if if I wanted to get out quickly I might pair that with something else but that's one way to look at you're getting a pretty good quality passport you know something in Europe generally um without much money you're just basically paying service fees and maybe a filing fee not that expensive if you don't qualify or if you do qualify in crypto and you just want to be be able to be out sooner you can go through citizenship by investment uh the price is going up I I'll let you I don't know when we're running this so I'll just I'll I'll make it more neutral the price of the these Caribbean citizenship by Investments which have kind of been the go-to is they just harmonized at $200,000 so that's a donation you're

going to make and you're going to get a Caribbean citizenship from a country that doesn't want to bother you probably can't bother you um it's a business transaction they do due diligence on you and you get a passport in you know these days probably call it nine months I mean the paperwork time has to get thrown in there as well um but that doesn't require you to really have any connections you don't generally have to go there even um other countries like turkey have that where you buy real estates if you want to kind of kill two birds with one stone you buy real estate you get the passport Egypt has that as well that's probably the best second passport um you know van watu is not as uh good of a passport but they've got a program that's going to stay around the $100,000 level so you can just make

donations but what's called citizenship by investment all the way up to uh in Malta they've got a program being challenged by Europe it may not be around that much longer but it's going to cost you about a million dollars and that that's going to get you the same European Union passport that if you're lucky enough to get through your ancestry you can get for basically free so whenever I see someone who like they're grandfather was Italian I'm like you know I have clients who pay a million dollars to get that same European Union passport okay one's Italy and one's Malta but if you have any of them you can live in all the countries and you can generally have pretty similar travel privileges so those are the two big ways you know we have we've had people who they go in and they hire a 100 people and they get given you know

they're given citizenship you seen you know the president of Serbia or Russia or France you know give celebrities citizenship um so there's ways sometimes to do that you know if you're a big investor um and then the other way of course is you just you just move there you know if you get a residence permit somewhere they might have a requirement to spend one day per year or six months per year or nine months per year for X number of years at which time you can become naturalized you probably need to speak the language or at least pass a test and you probably need to learn a little bit about the history so that's kind of like someone coming to the US and you see them waving the flag at the swearing in ceremony that's what you're doing somewhere else except most other countries are more flexible than the US

in terms of how long you need to live there that kind of thing but you know that's not for someone who doesn't want to move so you could do any combination of those right you could get you know Mexican residents spend some time in Mexico apply in five years while also getting s Keva citizenship for 200 Grand you're covered you know in the next year and then you could be digging through the archives to see if you could become you know Slovak um and and if you got all those three I mean that'd be a pretty powerful combination You' be able to go to a lot of places so it's basically there ancestry should look at that or it's or it's pay to play you basically have to buy something or you have to be a resident and it could be some combination of those three things as far

as how you're like kind of going to get in but it's not the case that you could just like spin uh you know a a globe and uh like put your finger on the map and like hit a country and you're just like there right you have to go through some gates and through a process you can't just like select your country and just be like I want to be a citizen of X yeah I mean like Switzerland you have to be voted on by the locals you can't you know and then you know so I mean like you know some countries don't allow dual citizenship so for me lifestyle and financial opportunity costs are important I understand that we all want to save money um I understand that the idea of paying $200,000 to basically get a book seems silly to people again especially if you're from the west and

you've been indoctrinated your entire life to think like this is as good as it gets um people often default too ah you know it sucks here but it's still the best that there's out there it's not but anyway um you know it's $200,000 is a one-time cost is that better than tying up your money in real estate in Turkey if you don't want to live in Turkey is that better than going and spending six months a year in a country if you don't want to spend six months there is it better than going and living in a country to become naturalized where the taxes May to be where you want I mean the some of the most tax friendly places in the world like Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia in Singapore the gulf you know Dubai and Qatar and all those um even Panama in Central America

they're all pretty stingy if not outright they just don't give citizenship so sometimes the places that are tax friendly and good for actually living in um aren't places where you can get a citizenship I mean I would say the citizenship through naturalization plays either in Europe where you've got high taxes outside of some places um where they've got you know lump sum or non- Dum programs those aren't always as friendly to crypto investors right so Ireland is a non-dom program doesn't really work for crypto so Ireland would be a great passport no language to learn spend six months or so a year get the passport in five years uh but it's not tax friendly if you're in crypto so I mean unless you're unless you're you know you're you know you're not going to uh pay more than $200,000 in tax while

you're living there you would have just been better off getting the other passport Ireland's got a great passport maybe you love the country I'm all for that if it's worth it for you but you have to balance uh you know what is it worth for like don't move to a country you hate just to get a passport and certainly don't move to a country with crazy high taxes to avoid paying $200,000 for a passport uh now it was $100,000 in some of those countries up until very recently and I was telling people it's going to go up at some point and now it has under pressure from who the United States and the European Union who see more people are doing this and suddenly they have uh you know some concerns I want to open up the the lifestyle conversation in this whole uh campaign because I would this I would

imagine that this involves giving up your lifestyle and of course what lifestyle you hop into is probably pretty different depending on where you actually end up but I'm sure that there are some like kind of common denominators here like I'm sure you're more of a a traveler by default in this like new life that you're building for yourself maybe you can kind of unpack what this new life might look like for for people or what are some of the in choices that they're making here somebody La it out to me pretty well he said you know you're you're more of a dopamine focused person you like to keep moving and so I created the the trifecta approach where you could have you know three different homes you spend four months a year and and if they're all more emerging places you might be a tax

resident of nowhere and you might actually need to go and get a tax residence if you want to open a bank account for example and so you get a tax friendly place to be a tax resident not everybody's like that um some people are the opposite and so you can move to a tax friendly place so that whether you travel or not is really up to you I I like to keep moving I become a bit more sedentary as I get older but largely it's because I just you know I have business in different places um there's been different residence and passport deals where I've just you know I've bought small properties in different places and I bounced between them that especially came in handy you know during covid um you could you could you know lever between those um so you can choose how much you want to travel for me the

lifestyle of just getting out of your country uh you know I I remember going on a trip when I was a very young adult and I met uh a couple of girls I'm like this just feels a little easier a little more comfortable and just even a little more cerebral like we can have more intelligent conversations that I'm used to where I'm living in the US and just feels like better and I've kind of proven that right in all my Years of Living outside of the country so I think that you know if you live in the US it's a pretty bad place to meet well I guess there's people who come from all over the world but if you're going to be traveling and meeting people most of them can't come to the US and that was one reason you know why didn't I want to

move to Puerto Rico uh at the time one reason was I was single and I said I'm not going to meet anybody who's going to be able to come and live with me in Puerto Rico the person I'm going to meet needs a Visa and they're probably not going to get one um or if they're European like they're just they can't be there all the time uh I'm not probably not going to be with an American so um I think that you know if you look at it not as what I'm running from but what I'm running to um I'll tell you what I I I look at other people's YouTube videos i i i screenshotted a comment from a guy he said I can only dream of having the title of husband and he speaks for so many people I guess in the US and I guess the

Western world where I feel like so many people are at each other's throats that everything's a war including meeting people and I see so many people just feel locked out of having friends and having love relationships um I'm planning my 40th birthday party I said okay I'm gonna I'm GNA I'm going to do something nice I've got 19 people flying in in some cases from halfway around the world no one is from down the street 19 people I've met and some people that I knew from when I was in the United States and I you know don't know probably most of my friends who are in the United States who are 40 years old don't have 19 people coming down the street to go to their party and so I think if you look at it what do I

get not what do I give up but what do I get and looking forward to that the lifestyle piece fits a lot better would you say that the clients that you were with or the people that you talk to who who do this activity uh this Nomad capitalist activity uh are they like outgoing are they like looking for experiences like what's kind of like the archetype of uh a client of yours I think it's all over the place no no strong com denominator I I don't I'll tell you what I mean we have people from all over the world now it used to be very Western Centric but people from all over the world see this as something that you have to do I think we were one of the first people talking about the Western world doing it but yeah we have people who are very introverted I remember one

guy told me like uh he moved to uh to Dublin Ireland for tax savings and he said well I didn't like it because it rained too much I I I've never been in douin when it's raining that maybe it's just me but uh I think that's one thing the weather is not as bad as people think but uh you know he ended up moving to like a small island with like 20,000 people or something um whereas other people yeah they want to be in Dubai they want to be around you know those social opportunities um so I think it's all over the place um obviously you know some people are single and that means they're looking to find friends they're looking to find maybe a relationship um if you already have a family we've got a guy um who's who's speaking at our event this year has been a friend of mine for

years he's got five kids they live my Trifecta approach and they don't even own him the real estate that I met him in boka a couple couple months ago he was staying in a hotel they got two hotel rooms for a family of seven and they just travel the world his wife homeschools the kids he works remotely and I mean they're kind of a self uh you know self fulfilling unit I mean they they they you know are within the family I was going to ask you about that if there's any sort of lifestyle trade-offs that you see like if you're if you subscribe to the style of living whether you can have a family it sounds like there are some cases where you can I like can you have property in the way that sort of you know the the white picket fence sort of idea of you know a

middle class America you get a garage and you fill it with stuff you put bicycles in there and you just like have different toys you have a lot of physical you know POS possessions you get really plugged into your community your kids go to the same school you know they're brought up the like are these sacrifices that you really sort of have to give up if you're going with at least I I can't remember if there's a plan a or the plan B but whatever the plan was where you sort of like live in different countries and you kind of like uh exit the US entirely rather than just having a second passport as a backup well plan B would be I'm going to stay where I'm at but I'm going to have the tools to get out and be prepared if necessary I'm going to get a second passport I'm going

to get get an offshore Trust I have a you know and but I'm going to be ready to go but I'm not going to go plan a is I'm moving out now The Nomad and Nomad capitalist to me uh another speaker uh told me he said my family moved from Sri Lanka to Australia my parents did and now me I'm moving with my wife to Dubai one generation that's hard because I have so many clients the one thing where they never move they or they never renounce that they talk about it and they stop at the end is immigrant parents I spent so much time and effort to come here for you it's like well that that's the sun cost fallacy but so many of them buy into it this guy didn't he said listen we got a generation worth out of

Australia you know and then I moved that to me is The Nomad I enjoy traveling I like different lifestyle I like going to Colombia and having the food and I've Got Friends there and I like that culture but then I want to go to Asia like I like seeing different places I like watching the world evolve and and watching you know the emerging world and people making more money and stuff is happening I like that uh and I've always been a Believer since I'm 8 years old and giving charitably to places that I wouldn't live I mean my charity list is developmentally disabled orphanages in India it's animal shelters in Cambodia it's that kind of thing I I like to go to Cambodia and see my investments but I'm not going to live in Cambodia so for

me the community and giving back was never the place that I wanted to be I I never understood like you know nobody in Scottdale Arizona needs charity that badly like you know I and I kind of feel like it was selfish to like give to people in Scottsdale like some of the richest people in the world just so I would feel good to be part of the quote unquote Community like I would rather sacrifice the sense of community and know that like people who are really much much much more in need are taken care of that I played some small role in that than like I went to the Rotary Club and we had punch together and we're all friends um but if you want the house you can have that I have a number of you know homes and I like having the tea kettle and I like

having the clothing that I I don't have to pack and I go there and it feels like home but if you want the stuff in the garage then I guess you probably just want fewer homes and uh you can have the house with a garage and I think you know Dubai is a place that if you're in crypto it's still good if you're in business they do have a new corporate tax for most people but for crypto it still could be good I mean they're doing that right I mean you have these beautiful skyscrapers with a part BB but you also have lots of villas with that you know kind of lifestyle that you're used to and I think that a lot of people who are Western who who subscribe to that white picket fence yeah they they like to go to the gulf I I talked to a

guy grew up in a compound in in Saudi Arabia and he said you know it's not nearly as bad as everyone makes it out to be so I think that you're seeing like in that part of the world they're kind of catering to that audience they've got a Cheesecake Factory in Dubai uh they like the American brands over there you can have that kind of lifestyle or you can be you know more of what I am am or I just enjoy the rush of different places and by the way I'll tell you this having a home in Colombia and going there for a couple months a year turned me on to hiring people in Colombia that turned me on to hearing about business opportunities that turned me on to let's get a person to come and do like some sales stuff that turned me on to now we

have you know and so like to me being in different places shows you business opportunities and that's part of why I like it as well is you're seeing what's beyond your country off off top of your head what are the most crypto-friendly jurisdictions in your experience when you talk to people you know like in crypto doing that sort of thing I mean you mentioned Dubai like what's sort of a you know the top five list of of crypto-friendly jurisdictions I mean the uae's probably been I think one of the better ones um you know one place bellarus was talking about from a tax perspective being good maybe it's not a place people want to live although I think probably people kind of I mean geopolitically you may disagree but I think the quality of life there is actually not as bad as people would say um you know Malta kind of

thrown its head in the ring I think Bermuda had done some stuff um um I can't say I I've kept up with those as much uh I will say there's certain like among the Caribbean citizenship by Investments there's some that are like more open to crypto source of wealth and others that's something we've had to kind of figure out the hard way so it's not as easy as like I'm going to pay in Bitcoin so you know those are probably a couple that stand out to me I think that what you're what I'm always looking at is small countries and so we kind of go back to where we started which is I think too many people are proud to be from the US or from Canada and that's too much of their identity um I meet people all around the world who come up to me and say they met

the love of their life or they found happiness or they just you know moved overseas for more freedom and they're enjoying life um because they watched me to me that's a much better identity to have that you made a change um than an than a nationality that you had no control over um and I think that you know smaller countries are more attuned to that um when I was just in the country of Georgia recently one where I think a lot of people are doing Bitcoin mining I think they were very much open to that as well they they want people to come and do that they were crypto friendly like real estate deals are on the blockchain there they moved over to that uh so add that to the list whenever they're mentioned in a movie like the whole country comes together and like has a moment of

national Unity because like no one ever talks about them but what are the countries that going to be friendly to emerging Technologies the country that is the underdog that needs the attention that needs the win that's why I think the US well there are a few people in government who seem Pro crypto overall will probably be anti crypto it's a threat to them whereas a Georgia or a Malta or a Bermuda or a UAE seems sees as an opportunity I us see people getting like digital citizenships I think from like uh jurisdictions like Estonia is there anything to that like what what is up with that why was I seeing this we have we actually have the former president of Estonia speaking at Nomad capitalist live this year because he did two things he was part of the team that did taxes on a postcard like

this one page do your taxes in three minutes which a number of other countries have done and he in he helped introduce e- residence which was basically uh get like an ID that you could open companies you can open bank accounts and then what happened was this is the problem and this may not impact you if you're all crypto but if you run a business as I do and people want to pay you in Fiat the banks in these countries often say well that's great but we don't want the risk of opening accounts for people who've never been here who got this e- resident card through an embassy so you could use to like set up companies and like validate that you're who you say you are um didn't work as well I know like palao is you know giving away like these you know

residence permits um for like digital Nomads that are you know more easy I'm a fan of kind of traditional stuff I want a real residence permit that leads to permanent residence or leads to citizenship I want citizenships the E stuff uh can be you know interesting at times but I don't think it moves the needle that much for the stuff we're talking about all right well so I I promised at the beginning we'd get to some of the criticisms here so let's dive right into the criticisms of people who've hung with us uh this far and maybe are still have questions or their blood's boiling for for some reason or another so let's just address them headon so like the first is this is everything that you're just articulating Andrew is this unpatriotic is this kind of like running away like why not just

instead of exit take the time to make the place that you live better and use voice and uh you know H H have some national loyalty Here Andrew what like what do you make of that criticism well I think loyalty has to be two ways if you go back to a personal relationship you can be apologetic you can want to improve you can want to do all the right things despite being imperfect if the other person just digs their heels in what's there to do with that and so again yeah you know what I am more understanding the person in lickstein that says I'm going to stick around why well lickstein essentially functions like a small town in the US I don't think that many people are angry with the mayor of their town right I mean I don't know I don't know who's you

know really upset about the mayor of Avon Lake Ohio where I graduated high school there's 20,000 people there uh people get together and they do stuff in their Community but in the United States and in some other countries that is overshadowed by the state government and by the federal government and the federal government gets to Trump all of that they set the tax policy you can move from one state to another to lower your taxes but just by a little and I guess what I say is whether you look at where your tax money goes and what you get back for it whether you know you look at how the government treats you are they loyal to you I mean what what I mean you know I'm I'm thankful for my dad for having these conversations with me I'm thankful for the lessons I learned growing up yeah I

had a couple of good teachers that impacted me um but for me it's people that make the difference in your life because uh yeah there's some other successful people from Avan Lake Ohio why aren't they also successful if it's just if the government you know merely being there is is what makes them successful I mean that I I heard sadly a couple people died of drug overdoses I've never done a drug in my life you know why why is there those two different outcomes maybe it's much more about you know the family and the people who are in your community and so yeah I'm loyal to my dad for that reason I you know inviting him to my 40th birthday party hey come and speak at the event and hang out with Nigel farage and all that um I don't understand why this kind of nameless faceless entity uh

that's called a country and again the bigger the country the more nameless and faceless it is um what exactly do I owe them and by the way to the extent that yeah I did go for many years to Public Schools uh my parents paid a boatload of taxes uh and I lived in the US and I paid a lot of taxes for a while and so um you know if you're a productive citizen at a certain point you know it's like it just becomes too much uh you know I listen I'm not all for paying zero tax by the way uh if you live a lifestyle where the the net result is zero tax well we have statistics almost no one's voling teing to pay more tax but I'm willing to pay something I just happen to think that I shouldn't be a

political pond because I've chosen to be successful based on things less related to my country and more related to the people that I was around uh that you know I shouldn't be the political Pond to say well now you should pay 70% so that everyone else can get free stuff while the government continues to mismanage the money again less have an issue in liin or Ur but big issue in the US UK Canada Australia what about this idea that if we are um making sure that we have duel or or try citizenship in order to just like prep for some sort of uh event where we need to exit uh well everywhere all countries are a Fiat regime uh and Fiat regime's kind of suck no matter where where where you are so

what about this idea that if really hits the fan just like there's no place to actually run like sure you've built your Arc but where you're going to dock the boat uh and and so it kind of what about this idea that it only really works if you're acting this lifestyle where while there are also good times but in there in the event that there are bad times like well it's bad universally well I think there's good times in some places while there's bad places in others this idea that that the world is all in one state at any one given time this to me is kind of a North American almost pornography where I think you know Ronald Reagan said if everywhere else Falls well maybe more relevant back then uh look at what's happening with bricks look at what's happening I mean multipolarity is a big thing now um

I I think that it's hard for people who have accepted their nationality that's such a big part of who they are it is hard for them to accept that just being American in the grand scheme of things now nobody cares when I talk to my banker in Singapore she manages a lot of money um I said would you either have an American or an Indonesian client she said Indonesian all day long and we have Indonesians with $100 million net worths there's plenty of rich people in these countries these countries are becoming richer not the I mean average person is but you're seeing some people becoming really rich they come with far fewer regulations for that Banker it's so much easier to service them they're more profitable customers so this idea that

like I'm an American I'm sorry to tell and I'm not because I hate anybody but it's just the truth nobody cares you know Americans you know they they it's like oh well I'm sure that the Caribbean will want my money they don't care you're you're 8% of the clientele and I think that it's a reality now you know the the dollar is becoming a smaller percentage of the world Reserve currency Pi um you know it's becoming smaller I'm not saying the US is irrelevant uh but I'm saying it is less and less relevant and I think that's an adjustment and so I can tell you this in terms of what I call hard freedom is the US government following the Constitution are they doing everything that's written

down are they like oh we have this constitution well that's great if the people in charge don't follow it and no one can force them to follow it that's great you have some words on a paper right I you know I've got someone who's going to speak at my event they signed a contract I'm not coming they said and it's like okay well um what am I going to do what's that worth now there's soft Freedom where it's just like no one's ever been in the business of screwing with people it's more of a Live and Let Live mentality and if that's the culture that's a hard culture to change um you know when I when I talk to my my friend in Montenegro who helps me P pay my my tiny Property Tax Bill she goes in on a Tuesday at 1:00 p.m. and

there's some gu smoking at a card table these guys are not you know you pay you don't pay you're six months late whatever right there's not a formal system there and I think that you know if you get out of a handful of Western countries you will find things are pretty darn informal and people don't want to bother you and yeah I guess what I guess if Malaysia dominated the world tomorrow maybe they'd get their fork and knife out and start you know ripping into people they're not going to do that and I think even then it would take a while because the culture is just Live and Let Live and so if you want to be free I I think that's worth something now depending on what you want to be free from there's different places that are better I mean in Asia they're not

going to respond as well to a you know to a pandemic if your goal is to be walking around outside um they're they're very you know health and safety kind of minded um but you know they're going to leave you alone on the streets every day I'll tell you that um so I I this idea that there's nowhere to go i' I've you know kind of debunked this on a couple occasions but um I guess having you know been to all these countries it just feels to me like a nice thing to say to reassure yourself that I don't need to get a second passport I'll be fine just here and if you want if you're fine just that's great that's great um but you got to own what comes with living in a place and and again I'll say this if you're in crypto uh I get the

libertarian argument I never signed the social contract to pay tax well listen whether you sign it or not if you don't pay your tax in crypto they're coming for you they're beefing up their enforcement they they have a Target on your back and again I don't believe in these high tax rates but they're like you live here so take the good with the bad or understand there's a place that in every value you have probably better represents you than the place you happened to be born what about what about the the the fairness argument here and maybe this is the last critique um that that will Levy at you Andrew to get response uh for it's basically like uh kind of like uh a populist uh type of movement but just like basic basic

fairness which is like we talked a lot about these citizenships they cost money even going through Nomad getting Consulting if you have ancestry it still costs money but in some cases it's explicit uh 100K to a million dollars to go buy your citizenship somewhere so some people listening to this might be just like okay this does not seem fair at all even if they are wealthy they they might have a moral issue with the rich people getting the lifeboats and the Titanic is is sinking and kind of the poor people all go down with the ship um yeah what's what's your take on on that critique that this is just like not fair not the way it should be and so if you're wealthy you shouldn't take advantage of this and uh if you poor if you're poor you can't and so it's like

not fair fundamentally I don't know how many wealthy people are saying that I think that people who have opportunities whatever they may be um take them um I mean you know it's not fair if you're a beautiful young person to maybe take advantage of those opportunities but um I think many people do uh I think that you know first of all one of the things that I I I push back on is oh I can't afford to do this I mean you can get a remote job um there's there's plenty out there um there's companies like ours all the way up to big companies you can you know be in freelance you can be in crypto and build your own independent you know passive wealth uh you can find a way to support yourself I mean my goodness uh the cost to live a place

like a qualum PO which is I think the Best Value City again in the world you could I mean you could live there in $22,000 a month I'm not saying you're living like a king but you could live a nice lifestyle there for $2,000 if you're from a Western Country and you and your country is so great and all this stuff you're paying taxes for all the education and everything they gave you and you can't scratch out $2,000 a month on your computer yeah how great was that country after all you know like people people who are like yell at me that like they can't afford what I'm doing but there're 65 and they live in what they call the greatest country in the world and they couldn't save a million dollars go back for your S&P 500 you would have had I think we calculated if you saved $180 a

month for 40 years of working you'd have a million dollars in the United States your country's not that great if you couldn't have afforded $180 a month so that's the first thing I think everyone can do this there's digital Nomad visas Latin America has very affordable residence permits you can work your way towards citizenship by living there some of them are even tax friendly if if that matters at $2,000 a month it doesn't that much um but what I also say is what's the fairness to the countries you mentioned citizenship that are offering that I think you know self-determination sovereignty are important you saw a number of these Caribbean countries they broke away from the UK back in primarily the 70s the first pitch was uh be a banking sector and well they had agriculture but okay that often didn't work out then the

pitch was okay be a banking sector like we you know we want you to have some money so that you're not a basket case know be do Offshore Banking then they they came and cracked down on that we're tired of Offshore Banking and then it was like okay how do we make some money let's do citizenship I'll tell you what I'm proud uh when I watched the St Lucia prime minister's address a couple years ago what do they talk about I mean my wife and I were joking about it we like we built a road you know I come from the US you know here she is she comes from Moscow like we built one road but it's a tiny Island they got you know 175,000 people that's the biggest of the islands that do this you know or in Domin we're building uh low-income housing with the

money and you know you've got a lot less bureaucracy I mean heck even France has less bureaucracy than the US these days for building stuff but imagine Dominica St Lucia I'm sure they have a little bureaucracy but nothing compared to it you get you know a thousand people chipping in 100 Grand 200 Grand they go for their small population and they do things basic you know Human Services uh that uh you know they've they've had one thing after the other perhaps that didn't work and I think sometimes it was a Western Country like the UK kind of rug pulling them on oh that industry you have no longer serves us I mean how fair is it to a small country that wanted its sovereignty to be told uh you know we like what you do one day and not the

next they found a commodity that they have they're peaceful countries they leave people alone they do due diligence on people and uh it's one way to get citizenship um you know I I I I think that uh that's good for those countries and and that's one thing that I'm proud of with our employees around the world I'm proud of with our charity I'm proud of even with the citizenship process uh I I like watching people who came in you know and some of these countries they get a $600 a month job and in three years they got the same opportunities as a Westerner would and now they make $6,000 a month um that makes me proud seeing that people from places where they never thought they would reach that level got it and I'm never going to be happy if people

are hurting I'm not um but you know the arrogance of folks in the United States who thought just because we're American there should always be a gravy train where's our three cars in the garage and one of us works and one of us stays home and it just should always be that way well it's not and I think that's why again there's this kind of um frustration among people in the west right now that it's not as easy as it once was and that's partially because you can come and work for me and you can go from 6,000 600 a month to 6,000 a month because the best talent should win I don't know what's anything less Fair than that and I think it certainly has not been fair to some of these smaller countries that they've been held back I'm happy they can take my 100,000 or

now $200,000 and do a lot more than dropping bombs on people or paying off 3 seconds of the national debts interest probably not not even 3 seconds probably 03 seconds I mean like you know at the end of the day I want my money to go to good causes if like when I when I reduced my taxes by living the country not by renouncing but just by moving um I I'd always been you know somewhat charitable but when you go from paying 43% to like zero Hey I'm going to give more to charity I can tell you what the impact of me giving 43% of my income to the United States government is a lot less than you know giving 50 Grand to some

charity and 100 Grand over here and you know whatever Andrew I think you've got given a lot of Bank list listeners from uh some cause to thought and of her thought on on this episode I'll say for myself I've definitely part of the reason I wanted to have this episode is because I'm thinking about the chaos of the 2020s and sort of the decline of Empires and I'm sort of like uh reminded of all of the chaos that happened um you know in the in the 20th century and how uh cataclysmic that was and how quickly it sort of uh you like jump jumped on people's uh radar and uh you like a little bit of preparation can certainly help I was you know um thinking of this is one um conversation with the Jewish

lady I I saw on like Holocaust a holocaust Survivor and she said this about Nazi Germany she said um the pessimist left but The Optimist stayed and uh that kind of stuck with me it's just like man if it's your family if it's if it's your life you want to have a a backup plan to all of this because things can change in in a hurry in the circumstances you were brought up with so maybe this gives some folks some cause for thought of how to have a plan b or maybe a plan a I'm going to ask you to do this so kind of summarize all of this uh for us if you will particularly for for crypto listeners and if somebody is interested in finding out more going through the next step to seeing if like a a second passport is uh good for them

what should they do next like what's the the first thing they should do I'm a fan of having a holistic approach the service that I've built in our business at Nomad cist is built around I wish this were there when I started but I'll tell you we're talking a lot about passports we've had people call us they won't work with us they go out and they get a passport from someone who just hey which beach do you like the best we'll get you that passport and then they're like what did I just solve you have to look at what are my goals I look at it as Finance freedom and lifestyle and what I'll ask people is if you've got a 100 marbles in those three buckets which go where during Co a lot of folks were saying I don't care that much about taxes I want freedom I'm putting most of

my marbles in Freedom and obviously I want a nice lifestyle so there's some going in there um you know we have people who are you know run big businesses the financial part is more of it asset protection tax production all that you've got to ask yourself that question and that's the basis on which you should move forward so if you go to nomad.com you can learn about our services um we have I wrote a book it's on Amazon it's called Nomad cist it's a collection of stories that kind of prepares you for what you should be asking that's a good start we have an event called noad cist live it's 4 days about 800 people from around the world where we talk about this stuff we bring in actual business owners from around the world we've got crypto people we've got Bitcoin people that's a place to

come and feel it or we just offer a service people who just want to hire us and they want us to figure it out but I don't think it's about just getting a passport it could be a combination of Resident citizen residence permits and passports um it sometimes we talk people out of getting a passport someone says oh I'm Australian I need a second passport to stop paying tax wrong that's not correct right Canadian wrong you don't need it you may need it one day but right now you don't need it okay I won't pay the 200,000 thank you okay let's get your residence permit my Approach has been we have dozens of different citizenship options dozens of tax friendly countries to move to if you want a bank account we have Banks all over the world for all different price points I never want to be the person who

buys into Dubai is the answer um it's still good for crypto but for entrepreneurs there are better options I think now if you like the lifestyle fine that's worth it but I think you want to know all the options and so just to go out and talk to someone who's in Dubai or Cypress or Panama if there's only one thing to recommend you you're probably not going to be served and you're probably going to come out of it thinking did I solve a problem the goal is not to move somewhere the goal is to solve a problem and everything you asked about the lifestyle uh I've plugged into this I want you to be happy where you go I'm happier now than I was in the US there's there's still bad days as there would be anywhere but I'm happier um and I think understanding

what motivates someone as a human being is important to where the things that you're bringing up don't become an issue because I do see a lot of expats just moving around the world that they go and do it for three years and then they move back and nothing wrong with that um but if the goal is to have a permanent Improvement in your finances and your freedom you're probably not going to get it by going back to the frying pan uh and I think that you go back to the frying pan because you didn't prepare well enough and you didn't take everything into account and you just got a passport and then you're not quite sure what to do with it and maybe you paid too much for one you didn't need that that's my Approach so Nomad caps.com is the website and by the way

we've got 2,000 articles there you can read we've got the YouTube channel with 2700 videos but um we do help people with this every day it's the most holistic service I think uh it's not for everyone um but it's designed for what I wish existed that's funny that's what we say at the end of every Bank podcast is not for everyone but we're glad you're with us on the bank list journey and I think uh if our episodes are our podcasts and our movement is about going Bank list yours is probably about going stateless and uh having some more autonomy in the the nation state selection here so uh Andrew thank you so much for coming on Bank list today and explaining how all of this works it's been super helpful we'll include some links in the show notes as well we appreciate you thank you got to end with

this of course you know crypto is risky so is your nation state in lots of various ways probably don't understand right now but we are headed west this is the frontier it's not for everyone but we're glad you're with us on the bankless journey thanks a lot