If you’re reading this from a high-tax-rate country, I’m sorry to say, that you’ve chosen to pay that high tax rate.

By choosing to stay put, you are sending your own money down the drain and straight into the pockets of the taxman.
Your government has been successful because they’ve convinced you that you need to hand a considerable percentage of your income over to them on a regular basis.
You cannot go anywhere else. Your business will crumble without them. You owe it to them. The rest of the world is dangerous. You’re safer at home. It doesn’t get better than this.
That’s what they have you thinking.

But that’s simply not true. You can choose your tax rate. For some, this will be 0% – living a tax-free life to the fullest. Others will choose to pay a low percentage as a trade-off for other benefits.
For instance, you may forego paying 0% in Belize and choose instead to pay taxes in a country like Italy or Portugal through the Italy Golden visa or Portugal golden visa, where your total tax bill will be substantially lower than what you pay now.

You’ll lower your taxes but not eliminate them, but you’ll be living in Italy instead of Belize. Do you see the trade-off? There are plenty of jurisdictions offering either one of these options – zero or low tax. We’ve served more than 1,000 high-net-worth individuals to optimize their personal and corporate tax rates. Yes, it’s more complicated than you think, but that’s where we step in. Our team sits down with government officials and pinpoint loopholes that we can leverage. We care more about getting the job done right than signing off a client and moving on to the other. That’s how we work. We get clients that ended up paying double their tax bill because they went to a country that blacklists the country they’ve chosen to set up their offshore country. There are endless scenarios that can go wrong, but you don’t need to learn this firsthand. We’ll be happy to serve you. That being said, there are many countries that offer generous tax exemptions and other similar incentives to motivate people to move there. By deciding to go where you’re treated best, you can choose your tax rate and take control of your life. It’s up to you.

I’m the goody-two-shoes of the offshore industry. I’ve earned that reputation because I insist on doing things legally. Anything less than 100% legal is unacceptable.

The same should be true for you. If you want real freedom – not just lower taxes – then you need to do things properly without cutting corners.

But when you don’t know what you’re doing, it can be easy to slip up here and cut a corner there without even knowing until you’re slapped with an exorbitant fine or even faced with jail time.

Creating an international tax strategy is complicated.

That is why I have created the tax-free quadrant to simplify the bigger picture and illustrate the different elements you must address to ensure that you can legally lower your taxes.

Have you always dreamed of moving your business to the British Virgin Islands – a long-standing offshore tax haven –and saving on tax while you continue to live in the US? Not going to happen. That’s not how offshore business works. If you’re personally a tax resident in a high-tax country (e.g., the US, Australia, Canada, the UK, or New Zealand), then your corporation will also be a tax resident there. It won’t matter if you’ve incorporated offshore. In fact, all that an offshore company will give you is more paperwork. If you’re a US citizen, your company will be considered a Controlled Foreign Corporation, and since you are personally based in the US, your company will have a permanent establishment there and will qualify as being engaged in a US trade or business.

All of these provisions, among others, will result in a mountain of reporting requirements for your offshore company… that will ultimately be taxed in the US anyway with very few tax savings, if any. You personally need to leave a high-tax country to enjoy tax reduction benefits. There are countries that do not have these provisions. Most western countries do, but there are countries that are more lenient and want your business, and so they will not subject you to such strict provisions. But if you’re in the US, the UK, Australia, or Canada, you cannot set your company up offshore and then live at home. You need to leave. That doesn’t mean you can’t go back to visit. It doesn’t mean you need to renounce. And if you decide that you don’t like living abroad, you can always go back and pay taxes again.

But it’s not that difficult these days to find new locations you’d be happy to call home. There are plenty of incredible places to live and run a business around the world. You must be sure, however, that you have successfully exited the tax system of your home country. If you think that this merely means living in your home country for 182 days or less per year, then think again. It’s far more sophisticated than that. If you’re looking to leave a country, spending less than half a year, there is not enough to count as ‘leaving.’ Recently, countries have started to consider an individual’s center of life, where they derive their economic subsistence, and where their center of vital interest is located, among other factors.

That’s why you need a solid plan if people come asking questions. In most cases, you’ll need to dissolve all ties with your previous country:

• Close bank accounts
• Sell your car
• Sell or rent out your home
• Change your mailing address to another country

The fewer ties you have to the country of your previous tax residency, the better. If you get the right professional help, personally leaving a jurisdiction should be a straightforward affair. US citizens, however, should keep in mind that they will remain liable to file annual tax returns wherever they are in the world.

Whereas moving your personal tax presence is relatively simple, moving a business entity is more complicated. However, it all depends on whether you’re a tax resident in the jurisdiction where your business is located. For example, if you’re not a tax resident in the US and have an LLC there, you can just up and move your business to a new jurisdiction – you won’t have US tax obligations anymore.

If you are a US tax resident and have an LLC that you wish to move abroad, you’ll need to contribute it to a new jurisdiction. Things also depend on the nature of your business. Is it a one-man show? Can the owner quit and move assets to a foreign country? Then just do that. Or is it an actual business with daily operations taking place? You’ll need to talk to a tax advisor to move such a business because you might be liable to pay tax,t and you definitely want to minimize that.

In such a scenario, the ideal way to transfer your business to a new jurisdiction would be to sell the business to yourself. And what if you own some intellectual property, say a patent worth $100,000? You could also do a tax-free reorganization to a foreign country (ideally, one with low or no tax), but western countries such as Australia and Canada will try and make you sell it and pay tax over the sale.

Moving your business abroad does not always mean that you have to undo your entire business structure. Sometimes that is the case. Sometimes it’s not.

Whatever your situation, let’s talk.