How to Pay Zero Taxes Forever

I've legally paid very little in taxes some years even zero but that wasn't always my objective today I'm going to tell you why I did it and then how I did [Music] it for me you want to approach the am of tax you pay based on what you are getting and so once you start to become successful if you have a six figure seven figure eight figure annual income you start to ask yourself I'm not paying $5,000 to support the roads the schools anymore this is a much more serious investment am I getting my money's worth and I think that when we look at the idea of there are countries out there that have non-dom systems lumpsum systems territorial systems there are countries and I'm actually starting to move in this direction myself where you're paying a decent amount of tax compared to other people but as a percentage basis it's very low that's one way you can go for years though I had essentially no tax liability because no country really wanted to tax and even if I said here's my tax residence where I'm legally tax resident that country also said well but you're not here and you don't have any qualifying income so we're not going to tax you either the three things we talk to our clients about at no mist is finance freedom and lifestyle I often ask them if you got a 100 marbles how many go in each bucket some people finances lowering taxes protecting their assets that's the biggest part but we're seeing more and more people who value freedom and lifestyle and for me the lifestyle part was actually what got me into this Nomad calist Journey many many years ago and for me what I could never do was decide where I wanted to spend all of my time years ago I listened to the subtle art of not giving enough it's a book by Mark Mark Manson he talked about how he had a hard time picking where he wanted to live but eventually he forced himself to choose to live in New York he said it's so much easier to live in one place for me I've reduced the amount that I travel I've been a bit more focused in the places that I spend time in recent years but for me I still like the idea of going to Latin America every once in a while I don't spend that much time there but I enjoy the spirit I enjoy the soul I just enjoy the the vibe of being there and I get to learn some lessons of what's working in that part of the world for our business we do have clients that come from Latin America I spend more time in Asia koal andur in Malaysia has been a base of mine for a long time and I'm spending time you know in Europe and so the bottom line is I was able to pay zero tax because no country asked for it due to my lifestyle when I was a US citizen uh I qualified for the foreign income earned income exclusion I used foreign corporation I did not take money out of that foreign corporation so I was somewhat Limited in how I spent my money uh to the extent that I was able to reinvest some of that money it was through a more convoluted structure which is something that we certainly help uh US citizens with in our business at Nomad calist you can legally pay very little if not still zero tax as a US citizen and living overseas if you're an entrepreneur but when I gave up my US citizenship I had more control over what I wanted to do with the money that's when I started with the collection of homes and and investing more in different places around the world but you know for me having multiple places that I call home I was never spending enough time in each place while I'm getting a little bit back to higher level places now for much of my life overseas I wanted to be in Far F places I wanted to see how emerging countries were operating and what the opportunities are and what the investment opportunities business opportunities I like seeing it progress I like the great sense of freedom of you know being in places where nobody really bothers you those countries generally are different than the smaller Universe of Western countries in that the emerging countries have in many cases only one test for whether you're a taxpayer and that is did you spend a requisite number of days here the most common number is 183 now unlike Western countries you'll often hear people say oh as long as I don't spend 183 days in Australia I don't have to pay tax well that's not true because Australia has like four different tests of whether you're a taxpayer New Zealand is a couple Germany is a couple I mean the UK has a whole bunch of things I mean Canada has like 60 some points of primary and secondary ties there's numerous ways to get sucked into the tax nent of a Western Country and if you are constantly in the go you never spend much time in any country and then you go to some you know Europe European country and you spend four and a half months you did not spend 183 days you did not fail the days test but they still may say well you know you have this tie you have this tie this is your most substantial this is that you know we think maybe you should be taxed let you know you can you can argue or maybe you can't but um that's what we think so we'd like to assess that you pay tax whereas many of the countries outside of that Western Universe the emerging world countries just a well did you spend 183 days here all the way down to here's a country that people ask a lot of times why do you live in Colombia sometimes why do you have a home there because don't you have to pay tax their taxes are crazy actually Columbia's taxes are among the lowest in the oecd I know they have more of a left leaning president right now and that may go up a little bit but they were one of the lowest taxed countries in this oecd which is a lobbying group of high tax countries they were lower than all the European countries and us but in Colombia it's a pretty simple days test I think it's 183 days and yet there are some people that I've met with who have temporary residence they're working working towards permanent residence but until they have permanent residence they have to spend 180 days there and so they thread that needle of not spending 183 but spending 180 immigration and tax they're never really connected so the tax people are like well you don't know us anything and the immigration people are thank you we're satisfied now you can argue whether that's good or not but you know those people just following the law that's the law that was created and and certainly over time you've seen you know some of these countries impose more barriers but in a lot of countries the tax tax code is much more simple than where I'm from the United States perhaps where you're from it's just here's the number of days there are not the multiple tests that Western countries have and so for me as somebody who enjoyed spending a little bit of time in Colombia enjoyed spending the winter in Malaysia would go here would go there I never crossed that threshold to the extent that in any year that I did for example I believe in 2020 I did in Malaysia Malaysia has a territorial tax system and so they say well you know we only tax money that was earned here which to me actually makes a lot of sense right if we if we create the conditions that that a business uh can hire you well you know that's worth something if you you know invest in stocks on our stock market you know that's worth something if you buy our real estate and sell it for a profit or rent it out that's worth something like we're we have a role to play in that but if you go and invest in Cambodian real estate like it's it's not our business what about you living in Malaysia specifically as a foreigner I mean like what did we do for that or if you have a business that operates out of the UAE I mean like that's not our business business uh and so you know there are countries like that that you know very rarely did I spend 6 months I think maybe only in that one year did I spend six months and so because I valued lifestyle above everything else uh I would have done that anyway actually interesting that a number of the countries that I have lived in over the years that are tax friendly I think there's a Vibe I think that for me coming from the US where I think the government is very heavy-handed uh where I just feel like there's an adversarial nature to dealing with most parts of the government whether it's the police whether it's the tax Authority you may not believe that that's not the case in other countries there's countries where the tax Authority literally sends you I I got one this year a Christmas card hey you know thanks for thanks for your contribution you know Merry Christmas the tax man the IRS isn't do that so you don't realize how some of these other countries are much more uh friendly but I think there's something in why I chose some of the places where I live because the government is less adversarial because you can just feel it and if you're living in a country where people are on each other's throats and you and the government are like enemies obvious was I'm I'm a fan of smaller government but the places where I live I don't feel the hostility that I felt living in the United States and so I think that perhaps I felt that I didn't know Malaysia was tax friendly many many many years ago when I traveled and I spent one month in every country in Southeast Asia and I met Bank presidents and I met you know this and that and entrepreneurs at the end of it I'm like okay Asia is my place where do I want to live I said I kind I think Malaysia is the best place it has the ice it's the best blend of everything I said all right let me look up is it immigration friendly yes mm2 pretty straightforward is it uh tax friendly you know what how do the taxes work because at the time I was I was a US citizen and I you know didn't want two tax systems conflicting oh it's also tax friendly and so there's a benefit if you're living in a place where you're kind of angry because the government is sticking it to you the politicians are sticking it to you going to a country you can float above the system a little bit and not have that to me is incredibly valuable just for your life so nobody ever asked me to pay taxes because they set the terms and they said we don't need a person like you to pay taxes and so that's the system that I adapted to and that's the system that we' then I've learned from many years of experience that we help people with a nomad capitalist if you're in a country where they want you to pay a lot of taxes there are places where you can go and be happier social opportunities are better uh you're going to see the world emerging you're going to develop a sense of self awareness and improve who you are I believe as an investor or as an entrepreneur and you're just going to save a bunch of money and we help people do that how do you get out of your country how do you get into another country how do you get a resident permit into to be able to get into that other country's tax system are you working towards citizenship like there's a whole bunch of things taxes residence citizenship asset protection banking some cases if you leave your country you've got to move your bank account others you don't uh we help people figure out the entire holistic puzzle not just in one jurisdiction but in all the jurisdiction we've got real estate experts and attorneys and tax professionals and all these different places and we make sure the puzzle works together in a way that I don't know that really anybody else does lots of people sell you their one little solution they sell it to everybody oh yeah mve to Dubai oh you don't know how to solve your problems over there ah sorry we can't help you so from my experience of building a lifestyle that I wanted feeling more freedom I ended up being able to keep more of my own money the reality is you can set up your company in a jurisdiction that has zero tax however if you're going to eventually employ people in many cases not all of them but in many cases especially at more entry level and the jobs they're going to want to be on a formal payroll you're going to pay payroll taxes and so maybe your company my company's in a place where there's no corporate tax but then you have other Affiliated companies that are part of the or chart where those companies May pay a little bit of tax when the headquarters moves money down to the local company and then the local company pays out and then you pay a payroll tax you're paying taxes obviously there's everyday taxes you know when I live in Malaysia I spend more money in sales tax than the average person pays an income tax and I'm not even there the full year so I think some of these countries understand hey if we can bring in people to go out and spend money and create jobs and we're going to collect some money on sales tax and maybe you know maybe they buy some alcohol and they pay Duty on it I mean I pay more taxes in Malaysia than uh the average person working at the average paying job in Malaysia doesn't bother me what I think bothers a lot of people that we talk to is they pay a lot of money they get no thanks for it it's like that's your job and they're not uh taking advantage of competition you can start further along the track than I started where again I was always frustrated uh paying such high taxes I didn't think 43% in the US was what I what I topped out at didn't think I was getting much for it didn't think what they spent on was very valuable but for me I would have moved regardless you now can move and you can work with Nomad capitalist and you can start off from hey I'm going to go from 43% down to you know zero or 1 or two or 5% you get to choose your tax rate and so that's the power of competition every country gets to set their own Vision the fact that a territorial tax country whether it's Panama whether it's Georgia whether it's Malaysia Thailand now to a little bit lesser extent that they get to say hey you know what whatever you do somewhere else that's your business why shouldn't they get to set that policy why shouldn't that get to choose what's best for them versus a country in the European Union that has a residential tax system if you live in France any money you make anywhere in the world Canada Australia any of those countries any money you make anywhere in the world hey it's because you're living here you should pay Hey listen they can do that I don't appreciate that those countries try and go out and squeeze the smaller countries but every country gets to choose their own tax system whether it's zero tax territorial lumpsum non-dom what you want to avoid is a residential system or a citizen based Tex system and so for me going through this has been incredibly helpful to go from being that you know libertarian kid I hear a lot of Libertarians taxation is theft sure do something about it you can sit at home and whne and be angry for me I don't know why you want to spend so much time worrying about politics and hoping that the right gu is going to get in it's incredibly draining emotionally it takes years off your life not to mention you know takes money away from time you could be running a business and so if you put yourself in the the position that I did where you figure out how many different countries would I like to live in maybe it's one okay now I can choose how much I'm willing to pay you come to Nomad cist I want to pay zero all right there's a handful of countries I'm willing to pay up to five okay how much money do you make you know I make $2 million a year okay so no more than 100,000 here's your list of countries where you can pay 5% or no more than 100,000 I mean all the way down there's countries that you don't think are tax friendly that actually are Ireland the UK Malta Cyprus Switzerland Italy Greece just among them including countries outside of Europe as well and so just because you see headline tax rates in one country doesn't mean that's what you'll pay in your country very simply one country two countries three countries what do those countries look like there's so many places to choose from you can choose your own tax rate you can choose your own Lifestyle by choosing your own lifestyle you build Freedom uh that's what we do I spent many many years learning this if you want to go to Nomad capitals.com you'll learn how we can help you do that you choose where your marbles Go finance Freedom or lifestyle but that's the story of how by living in different countries and in part by chance and just enjoying life I was able to pay either zero or now very little in tax by following the laws of other countries [Music]

Channel: Nomad Capitalist

Views: 48,793

Keywords: nomad capitalist, Tax Optimization, Global Citizen, Financial Freedom, Tax Efficiency, Nomad Capitalist, Lifestyle Design, Tax Minimization, World Traveler, Smart Investing, Global Nomad, Tax Planning, Wealth Management, International Living, Location Independent, Personal Finance

Id: m1yHWfjDdUc

Length: 14min 44sec (884 seconds)

Published: Sun May 12 2024