This Family Cut Taxes 90% by Moving to Europe

This is a nomad calculus case study I'm Andrew Henderson we're here with Yona simchev and I read a pergamette who work in our strategy team creating holistic plans for our clients in Arena who works in the operations team executing those plans it's good to be with both of you and we're going to walk through a case study of a family who lived in the United States who lived in Florida they had a couple of key objectives they came To us with and actually ended up with some easier strategies than they imagined lower cost strategies than

they imagine they would be able to take advantage of when they came in basically surprised them so walk me through uh this couple in Florida with their kids and what they wanted to accomplish well some of their goals included saving on taxes moving to Europe and also getting a second passport okay and so they were living in Florida like this Low tax state and they came in and said yeah you know we're saving a little bit but we want to save more basically right correct yeah okay so goal number one reduce our taxes and their

business was what they had an online business so it's location independent Consulting business and also they had some YouTube channels and some Amazon merch Amazon merch right so one thing that jumps out to me is is someone who runs a YouTube channel we don't run ads on our YouTube channel They did run ads as I understand and so at YouTube what the US government actually did a number of years ago was said if you're running ads and you're hitting people in the US that's a royalty tax and that's actually taxed differently and that's harder to

Offshore I don't think they were aware of that that is correct I think that is one fact that a lot of people are not aware of right and so basically wanting to the second objective wanting to live In Europe kind of dovetails with that because if you have a treaty country with the US that's actually a little bit easier for royalty income right yes so people come in and they often think I should live in Dubai these people didn't want to live in Dubai I used to live in Dubai or some kind of zero tax

jurisdiction but if you have dividends if you have royalties it's probably going to do more harm than good right yeah it's going to be more expensive for Them right so sometimes the quote unquote higher tax jurisdiction is actually lower for a number of different reasons which we'll talk about so number one save taxes yes Consulting business slash youtube channel plus some merge second goal I wanted to live in Europe yes that is correct tell me more about that well uh they were kind of discussing where to go and we opted for Portugal because it has

a favor somewhat favorable tax exemption on the Non-habitual tax regime and they also had some claim for citizenship by dissent in Europe so we'll come back to that but why do they want to live in Europe in particular well the lifestyle suited them they kind of opted for that it's kind of the best place for their kids to grow up go to university and just kind of the environment was positive for them in terms of a lot of expert communities right so they wanted the community they didn't want to make a Big culture shock difference

they wanted they thought Europe would be more familiar and that the kids will be better off there right kids are 11 16 and 22. yes so one's already finishing up University um yes one's about to go in and they're saying hey let's just live in Europe and we can be around our kids send them to University ostensibly much cheaper than the US definitely the oldest one wanted to enroll in a master's course which is Also much cheaper in Europe than it is in the United States okay so they wanted to live in Europe so we're

doing that and then the third objective was we want to have second citizenship why was that well first of all to have options to have more freedom to have an option to just say goodbye to the United States citizenship um and then the second one is to just have more kind of freedom to live in other places now did they like the United States was this like hey we'd love to stick around but the taxes are too crazy or is it like hey we really think Europe is better they really thought Europe was better so

they didn't really like the lifestyle politics in the United States anymore and they wanted to kind of go where they were treated pests in this case they opted for Europe right and so they're willing to pay a little tax but they're like we don't want to be paying 43 percent That's correct because in Europe they're not going to pay zero but it's going to be substantially less than the United States okay so you mentioned uh so those are the three goals uh citizenship living in Europe and lowering taxes and I think what a lot of

people don't understand uh Arena you can talk to this is people think hey Europe has these really high tax rates but they don't realize how many incentives there are especially for foreigners come on in and We'll lower your taxes right yes exactly I think that in a lot of cases obviously Europe sounds great to all the US people right so there are a lot of access communities and everything but the mind is there is that people think that taxes are as big of a problem as it is currently in the US or Canada or Australia

or somewhere like that but there's actually like a lot of um a lot a lot of like for example for Yellow Dimension nhr non-habitual uh tax regime in Portugal uh let's mentioned Switzerland Italy Greece anything so there are actually a lot of options Ireland as well yes thank you so there are actually a lot of options that would be even better than uh and I mean anything else really plus it gives you both it gives you freedom I think it gives you uh it's obviously again expat Community it gives you a similar kind of Lifestyle

but it also gives you tax Benefits and Malta Cyprus there are others as well and if you have again dividend income royalty income that's not going to be zeroed out it could actually be higher in a place like the UAE you can take advantage of those tax treaties and Pay Less on that and then still keep the income tax the income tax in your business very very low so here's what basically the key things we prescribe for them and we'll go through some of the smaller points as we go Um number one uh we moved

the company overseas and then they were going to move overseas so given that they wanted to you said move to Portugal yes that's a temporary thing for them it sounds like well I mean Portugal is a current option for them but they might move elsewhere in the future but for the foreseeable future Portugal it is okay so the challenge that people don't realize with Portugal it is not as easy as moving to The UAE for example how do we restructure everything that they're doing well in terms of the corporate structure so they had a company

in the United States which they wanted to Offshore and one thing that a lot of people are not familiar with is that Europe has blacklists a blacklisted jurisdictions uh and the list is quite extensive especially in Portugal especially especially in Portugal so the looks can Be quite extensive so we kind of looked into what would be kind of some of the best options for them and we opted for Malta as kind of a the best jurisdiction in their situation so Malta has this structure where you have to like set up like it's generally a multi-corporate

structure you'd have to have like one company that's operating one company that's just just you have to it's a different more complicated structure both because malt is more complicated With kind of their pay a high tax rate and then we refund almost all of it but Portugal's also complicated more so than Italy or Ireland or agrees with the other ones that Arena mentioned because of how they um they have this larger Blacklist of if you're going to live in Portugal it's harder to do your tax planning as I know and then you have to have

a lower there's a smaller number of companies you can have and that's definitely true I mean they're not habitual tax regime kind of sounds really good but it's actually only a couple of foreign sourced income um foreign Source income is actually exempt um so it has to really be structured carefully and in addition to that there are only a couple of options that can really be kind of tax favorable in terms of Corporations and corporate attacks so Uh for example they could have chosen um let's say Ireland for example which the tax rate there is

now 15 corporate tax but they wanted to go a bit low still 12 and a half on smaller companies like like ours right okay uh right so they could have and I think Malta I think Ireland if you're not going to live in Ireland even if you are going to live in Ireland you probably don't want to so I have to have your entire operation Island one thing people don't Realize is you may not want to have your entire company anywhere but for their case Okay Malta works for Portugal there's other options around there's Bulgaria

there's different options uh Malta is a bit more confusing but they also as I understand had to kind of prove hey we're working in Portugal but other people are working somewhere else because Portugal's kind of like well who's doing the work where correct that's one of the other issues That the people are often not aware of that is permanent establishment rules um namely in Portugal they are kind of strict they are similar to other European countries where you cannot actually be employed by that company so you can be an owner of your company but not

be employed and get a salary because Portugal would see that as if they are if the company is having a permanent establishment right right and so people don't realize hey if they would have Stayed in the United States instead of their company somewhere else that company would still be taxed to the United States it's not that easy just to set up the company in Panama or something so what's the what's going to be their net tax rate all in all in this business as they leave the U.S they're still U.S citizens that does follow them

what's the tax rate as U.S as United States they are paying around 1.1 million right now in the United States they're paying 1.1 million on on 6 million in revenue and how much in profit uh three million or something yeah like three million okay what's what's that going to go down to now that they're in Portugal with this whole structure well Malta is only essentially it's going to be only five percent tax um so 150 000 on the malta side so yeah essentially uh they will save around 800 um because they're still gonna have to

Pay something a little bit extra to the U.S correct so it's gonna be a lot less but I think we said 750 or 800 000 in savings a chunk of what's left goes to the US and a chunk of what's goes to Malta so there's like a minimum they have to pay in the US given their situation and then they'll and then that gets credited multiple but they pay in Malta gets credited correct yeah so they're saving 750 Grand a year yes and every 750 Grand counts as we know Um now they chose to move

to Portugal so how are they getting into Portugal so because they actually wanted to live in Portugal spend time there full time uh we opted for the self-sufficient Visa in Portugal and which requires them to show proof of income and they have to actually spend time we make three million dollars a year right yeah so different than the golden beats people say people here oh golden Visa is going away in Portugal other countries but if You wanted to live there and I've seen this in my own situation if you actually want to live in a

country making a big investment isn't always required that is correct yeah although I mean in that case you have to commit your time in that country in order to maintain the residence so it's always either money or time money or time is the issue and then of course when you spend the time in most countries but especially in Europe now you are in the Texas and so that's Why we need the different planning I think we had like three different tax memoranda people don't often realize we need documents from proper tax lawyers that says like

here's how you do it here's the steps right yeah that's true I mean people sometimes when they do it on their own they do it without the memos and then when they encounter some trouble or some issues they really don't have anything to fall back on to so they don't have any documents that could Prove a tax Authority wrong so they kind of create addition we don't do any planning in advance basically so there's like well you screwed up and and people get into we had one guy what was it like he he was had

his pay in Spain 600 000 Euros or something but not being prepared so that's kind of the price if not not planning in advance especially in Europe correct and and memos gonna can be somewhat expensive however on a long-term basis they're definitely worth It like that's your insurance on saving 750 000 you're saying they're going to spend at least I mean probably the rest of their lives there it sounds like but if it's five years I mean that's almost four million dollars plus whatever they reinvest that into correct and as time progresses they're probably going

to grow their business even more so it's going to be even more in tax savings so we've got a family who wants to move in Europe and they're going to Take advantage of a low tax regime um I would say now they liked Portugal I guess they liked the vibe there a lot of expats are there I've said if you make more than 2 million euros in profit there's a better deal somewhere else than Portugal right uh because you have that you have that uh bigger Blacklist that restricts your options of how you could pay

less so over 2 million euros you're making a lifestyle decision to live in Portugal yeah Um and so it's a self-sufficient Visa as U.S citizens correct then they're doing all the tax planning so they're living in one they're moving from one country moving to another have a company in another uh all the employees are coming with them or how does that work they actually don't have employees only contractors yeah and just because that is the kiss of death sometimes no unfortunately no okay and So what were the challenges that we saw once this came to

your desk on executing setting up this this multi-part corporate structure in Europe getting that set up because because you're the general contractor basically between all these different people in three different countries that are involved how many people were there in total like five or six five five okay so what are the challenges that you dealt with yes absolutely so let's start maybe With uh I would say let's start with the immigration part of it yeah with the obviously uh self-sufficient Visa um the tricky part is that we all know that Portuguese authorities are I mean

that Portugal is not the best country we all know yeah everybody if you're reading some guy's blog or something who doesn't do this every day he's like oh this Portugal's the best place of all the cool kids where we're going to Portugal that you know this is what Happened this is why you don't want to follow all the cool kids but yes we know they're a little little sluggish yes let's say a little um but yes absolutely so uh the the issue I think came where obviously if uh if you ever heard something about the

self-sufficient Visa the process at all starts at the embassy the Embassy Park is the easy one right because it's actually it's not in Portugal right I still remember four years ago when we Were some guy was in Australia or something and the embassy the Portuguese Embassy they would put you on hold for like two hours we literally hired an intern for one client and half of their day for like a month was sitting at hold trying to get someone just to answer the blood like we just want to get an appointment and we had to

hide like we were like like hire an extra person like no joke but yeah I think in the US they're not they're not quite as Affectionate so I think that part came came quite easy obviously there were a couple of documents to to have prepared and and so on which is which was not that difficult obviously because they're they were still in the US the trickest part was when they actually came to Portugal to get the Biometrics appointments that was the trickiest part because now you're well dealing with with the with the bureaucracy and everything

there Um so the I would say that the trickest part when obviously and I will talk about that as well a bit later when we move on with the immigration part is um the documents collection everybody thinks it's very easy um and we go across that so many times that they say well why do you need this long you know um whether you need a month this is a question that a lot of Americans are asking like I get it by the way I you know you see me I get I Get frustrated another country

it's easy to get frustrated when you go into some other country when things don't work quite the same the payoff is you're saving 750 000 a year you're also gonna reduce your cost of living by a lot but Americans are like why do you need this that is kind of a thing that we do like what is this important for it's like listen just do you want to save 750 Grand or not yes and I think that that might be the Issue you actually need to see an end goal to see aha okay this paid

off for some people some people do not really understand what what are some of the benefits they will get at the end but it is bureaucracy it's no doubt sometimes it's kind of stupid but obviously we'll get to at the end how this family they're they're loving it and and they're going to reinvest that 750 and they're gonna make more they're gonna you know save money at a university save Money and cost of living eat healthier food et cetera Etc so the first challenge was collecting documents getting Embassy appointments yes and of course before that

just to add that obviously since one of their um kids was was actually 22 years old we had to enroll them into University before the actual appointment every country is different in terms of like who qualifies as a dependent exactly so Um in Portugal actually obviously the younger younger children were actually completely financially dependent on on them so they were not the problem with going uh justice dependence but with with obviously with the with the with the kid that was actually 22 years old uh we have to enroll in him in the University before the

actual um Visa is approved and uh obviously we help them with with all of that we actually providing with the list of the Universities that would fit their his needs what he wanted obviously there is a language barrier as well so obviously a lot of uh people want the English speaking there are a lot of schools in Europe that are in English correct English curriculum right yes yeah exactly um so obviously we we were working with them on on on finding the best university for for them um and afterwards we help them with the Enrollment

part and and so on um so again just to come back that the most trickiest part after that was actually in Portugal now uh for the main applicant usually the get getting the Visa especially in Portugal is not that much of an issue but for the rest it's easy to get approved yes but the process almost requires someone unless you want to if you're making three million dollars a year you do not want to be babysitting this process Exactly yes um so when you go to Portugal you go you go and take your take your

metrics right um and everything is okay you know they say well okay you know we now have the paperwork ready that's it uh two months later uh they're still nothing and I think that we all seen if you didn't you know there was I mean the Internet is just full of it right that it's becoming a bigger issue now yes yes I think now more than ever and you know when you go There you see oh I've been waiting for my application for I don't know how long you need someone to sit on them is

what you're saying exactly someone needs to be there making the call almost like on an ongoing basis the lawyers in this country one thing I see with these lawyers they're all like we we've found over the last Dozen Years the the best ones that they could find but they still talking too much like it shouldn't be a problem and I'm like it's going to be a Problem unless you manage it and so if I'm making three million I don't want to manage it the lawyer is not going to manage it for me so that's where

you're coming in and being like let's let's get it moving here exactly I think that they probably they probably they all know us here know us they're actually in Portugal because we're just we are actually calling uh following up every single day to ask for an update so when they have someone sitting on their back Let's say it like that yeah they're like oh okay how much faster do they tell you if you know it how much faster is it getting done potentially by sitting on them versus just the lawyers like Hey Okay servers are

up they may be approximately like let's say that with the lawyers it takes approximately two months to actually get your card I mean starting your hand with us I would say maybe half a month but a couple weeks yeah so you're saving four To six weeks maybe something like that yes but I think that they're sick and tired of us there and then they're trying just to get the obviously card residency cards issued as soon as possible and yeah and then for the self-sufficient they have to rent a property so walk me through how they

did that with yes Christopher and his people absolutely so obviously before the embassy actually you actually need to get to get the rental agreements before Or purchase yes or purchase of course yes uh before the actual um the actual appointment at the embassy now they wanted to purchase something as well but they wanted to actually see the properties and then decide what they want um and for the 22 year old their 20 year old child they also wanted to have something rented out for him so this would work perfectly so they'll get it for theirs

and then eventually they'll Move out and buy something yes we do buy properties site on scene for people I've done that yes but I think especially in Europe you want to go and like experience it make sure you're buying in the right neighborhood you like it agreed and they will literally you know travel there for Dubai Metro so why not just take that opportunity to have you know the mentor to have the tour um there but beforehand the renting part we did completely obviously remotely and Our real estate team sent them you know obviously it

goes on asking for the wishes asking for some goals what they want and our real estate team came back with you know with the with some options for them how much it cost what was the rental price uh I think it was approximately around 1 500 euros is it for a house it was a bigger apartment but I think that it has approximately it had approximately five bedrooms or so so it was quite big but if you look at it Compared to the US or anywhere else it's cheap right especially now with inflation when everything

right that would be one of the cheapest ones um but we also recognize that the interesting interesting part as well that was so try to organize the virtual property to it for them which was very nice and that's how actually they got to decide on which apartment they want to rent obviously after that the department they are actually physically in Portugal We did as well they kind of on the ground tour right um and uh and yes they decided to purchase a house there and that's what actually we either did so here's the good news

is golden Visa is gone now but even if you had the golden Visa you're going to have to put out 350 for 500 whatever before you know you don't have to make that Embassy appointment you don't have to rent the property but to save that amount of investment when you Don't entirely know where to put it this is what you've got to take these extra steps and so it's not good to have the support and sorry let's not forget about the timeline in terms of Portugal golden days it's become a problem yeah so the self-sufficient

is faster now right so okay so they set up their structure in Europe they're paying five percent plus they're topping up a couple extra percentage points in the US and so they said Hey listen we want to have and There's actually kind of a bonus passport as I understand got them they want second citizenship tell me again what they expected to gain from that well forward it's going to have more options freedom for what Freedom just to travel around for him from the United States also so not to be stuck in one country obviously when

with covet everything that happened people are kind of worried that it might happen again as well kind of restriction Of movement um then also they wanted additional options for their kids not just for themselves and they just wanted to have um kind of options to exit the United States they wanted to be able to leave right so if their if your goal is I want to live in Europe for five years save a bunch of money in taxes as an adventure come back with those income tax savings you could do that 3.75 million plus whatever

they Make on that you know it's not a bad thing for an adventure save money in your kid's school you could I mean maybe you get Portuguese citizenship and that if you're there five six years you can get a passport that way but they wanted the opportunity because they knew they wanted to leave full time at least one of them just to get the second passport and be able to sever the U.S tie Now is it going to say that they actually were kind of committed to not coming back to The United States for the

foreseeable future so they also kind of discuss maybe potentially both of them severing ties with the United States but later on kind of opted for only one of them to do that it's very rare I've always told people why did why do both if you have a married couple and they're both America they're all Americans right why do now no one had any other citizenships except for the ones we found right yeah okay You don't generally need to both get out now if one of them gets out that U.S Top-Up tax on Malta will no

longer apply correct that is correct so basically they're going to save an extra what 100 and something thousand a year if one of them leaves the owner okay additional 5.5 because and sometimes like with a fan with a with a married couple it's like oh she was born in Canada so she's the Canadian so it's easier for her to renounce he's just American like what's He gonna be right so do they want citizenship by investment is that what they came asking for well they were open to a lot of options they weren't really stuck on

one or the other uh what they didn't want to do is just wait for a number of years to get a pass but they wanted to get it in a matter of a year maximum year and a half just at least one so here's what I think like renouncing your citizenship isn't really all about taxes because You know especially if you've got a family like your kids want to go back to the U.S if the kids aren't renouncing and we determine one of the spouses won't renounce so one person's renouncing depending on what passport they

have they may or may and they're able to easily go back to the U.S but if you make three million dollars they're paying a hundred and some thousand like it's not again if you really love the US you're just gonna pay the hundred and Some thousand yeah the issue is the complexity with this multi-part corporate structure and is you're in all these different places it becomes more expensive to file that re-tax return there's bank accounts there's F there's a lot of things to do and that's correct and also in addition to that there are there's

certain income that the United States will exempt if you're living outside of the United States but the issue that the Portugal will not exempt That that income so for example with the United States you could exempt your salary but Portugal will tax it um Portugal would exam dividends but the United States will tax those dividends so it's kind of a tax neutral situation in a way in that uh personal income tax regard so if you're an American you still have some restrictions also people ask like you know I got a couple of P editors around

the world where we you know have business interests and it was I mean that was kind of a side effect of being out of the U.S system where now you have more control over your company's funds that you don't have as an American so even if the taxes aren't as low you're kind of restricted as to what you can do with that money outside of the business correct which if you just are piling up cash as they are it's not as effective okay so they came and you prescribe Saint Kitts and Nevis citizenship it's one

of the five it Gives them if they ever wanted to move there it's a tax-free country but that's not going to help them living in Portugal or the US why send kids and why for everybody well uh first of all they wanted options for their kids as well so they wanted them to be included in every kind of step of the plan especially citizenship at the time where they when they came to us I think it's had this amazing option where they had the reduced price of 150 000 US dollars for A family up to

four people and then for an additional fifth person it's 160. 10 grand Egypt yeah correct that's a good little when you get when we get these really big families we have like families of 11 or something and same kids is it's a cheaper for each person yeah that was the kind of option at that time so and also Saint Kitts is one of the best passports in the Caribbean area yeah in terms of visa-free countries um so Anno tax Haven and it's crypto Friendly so a lot of those things kind of factored in um in

our deciding that that was the best option for them are they in crypto also they're dabbling a bit in crypto that's one thing that yeah is U.S citizens would be an issue yeah not really much freely from that in Portugal okay so they show Saint Kitts and Nevis and they all wanted to do it because sometimes you'll have a case where it's just like all right I'm the dad I want to renounce but you can't Renounce for your kids right and you can't most you shouldn't have your wife renounce or vice versa so sometimes it's

like Hey listen I'm the only one who wants it but you're saying hey it's the same price now you'll say we have to collect all the documents for Saint Kitts and that's for five people that's a that's a schlep well yeah um we would I think it would be easier if it was only him but you do pay extra per person on the processing side but Not the donation side yes yes that's true um and plus on this on the other side yes it's more of course complicated to collect documents for five different people but

the main applicant is always the one that you're focusing the most of the most because you really need to provide all the proof of funds documents where is the money coming from and so on so it's it's it's much or less I wouldn't call it the same of course not but that's a very hard process really in Collecting the documents and if you had anyone that went through the process I mean they would say that it's awful and I've been through and the first time I ever tried it um well the second time I ever

tried it I just gave up and said I'm too busy running my business to be bothered with this and that's why I developed our team to be like let's focus on westerners and like let's have a notary in Miami let's have people in Miami like let's have Someone who comes to your house if possible and fingerprints like how to make it easy because um I've seen multiple people try it and just fall flat on their face like again if you're if you're a Westerner you're not used to this level of bureaucracy yes exactly and I

think that especially something that is well um let me say that for example um we need to order the FBI report the validity of the FBI report for example It's Titans Instagram I've always said you're threading the needle where you need this document you got to order it uh and you and you really have to thread the needle and timing sometimes or if someone's just handling it on their own it's like I got this but oh now that's gone and ordering a peer report getting the fingerprints taken the apple style the federal office side currency

takes approximately a month with the shipping time and with everything you are left With half a month you got a couple weeks where you got to be ready to go yes and if if that if that is if the shopping list is delayed if something happens and of course I mean with us it never happened thankfully but if you're doing it on your own well there are other documents that would expire in the meantime so you have to do it all over again I I've sat there with a stack of documents this like I can

tell you yes so this family of five 160 000 donation They obviously paid some extra fees with us it's just hey here's the entire fee for us to manage the process and then that includes government processing fees passport issuance fees kind of a one chunk so you kind of know what you're getting into it bothers me I think that most companies don't offer it that way it's like hey here's our fee it's like I don't care what your fee is I care what I'm paying and especially with the documents part I think that we all

know You you might not have an idea of how much that will cost but the documents were fine I think I spent 15 000 last time exactly and can you imagine the price for five people that's the one common misconception that we get in the first part of the process where people don't really understand how complex that is and what does that involve and they often kind of underestimate that part and plus if you have five again you have five different people here everyone born In a different state and you have to apostle that document

in each different state I mean if you technically if you drive all through the U.S yeah that wouldn't be that one if you're Canadian it's even more expensive as I understand yes they've got their own weird requirements yeah but it's one of those things where everything is easy and nothing is easy I mean you're if you're an American with a clean criminal record and you haven't Been sued by 100 people I mean you're probably going to be approved and your money's clean of course like you're going to be improved by these Caribbean passports but the

documents that you need to get are difficult so they got how long did it take to get the passport because I hear stories 18 months some of these people that aren't not with us but no thankfully not uh we took approximately two months to collect all the documents and after that it took Them three months to get the final approval so all in all five months since they started and then it takes a couple weeks to print out an issue a passport ah that that was all together with that remote because keep in mind you

can be a citizen of a country and not have a passport people understand that sickits is one of the best ones with that and that are they really yeah I mean apart from being the best passport out of the five it really has the I mean the Processing time is really good it's really they're more efficient it's a little more expensive yes but the travel's a little better it's like a total tax-free versus like Antigua and they're a little bit more less restrictive so okay so now the plan was and then they haven't done it

yet but they're because I think people sometimes want to get the passport again they're willing to overpay a little bit on the tax side for a while just to kind of say Let me travel are they going to switch the residents over to the Saint Kitts passport in Portugal once they get it because they applaud As Americans but they can flip it yes they actually with with the uh with the US Passport because obviously because because if you want to get started you don't want to waste you're doing it in parallel exactly but after that

after you get the residency with US Passport it's very Easy to after that switch it I mean where is it for us obviously we took the connections with everything just just switch it to the same kids passport now they obviously didn't know whether they was just switching to this think it's for obviously yes for that for him it would be 100 it will switch it however for the rest of the family they were still thinking about it but since since in the future there may be a possibility for you know The buy for example announcing

like could they imagine that was their idea at the beginning I think being on the safe side it's easier to just switch for for all of them and the question is sometimes like if one renounces and one doesn't it's like are you gonna have that one non-us person own more of the assets that's a personal conversation in your relationship of like do I want my spouse to own all this stuff like if you're one us and one non-us and you're Living in Portugal and you have Bitcoin that's going up you know from a tax perspective

much better for the non-us person to own it but then the UA what's the trust Factor right yeah I mean the trust is always important there are whether among spouses or business partners obviously for tax purposes we can always kind of go back to what is the best option but again at the end it kind of comes down to the trust so they got that password That's pretty easy so now they have the freedom to get out they have the freedom to for the person who for the spouse that owns the business and actually even

if they just don't own the business um as partners us and non-us they get some relief on that U.S Top-Up tax so uh you know they could still you could still do that 50 50. just but there's but there's still some of the restrictions yeah so it depends on how far you want to go with it in terms of How do you switch it but so now they have that passport he's in the process of exploring just making sure he feels comfortable traveling as a saint kid citizen plans to renounce simplify the life but we

Define they actually qualify for an even better passport which eliminates the need for even some of the residence work you did long term term yeah when talking about citizenship so one of the kind of most common things and one questions that we like to ask is Whether you have ancestors from other countries and in their case they did have namely the husband had from on the French side so his grandmother was French and he had the option of obtaining the French passport now that is not only an excellent passport in terms of visa-free travel but

also that would kind of eliminate for him at least and some of his children the need for having a self-sufficient Visa in Portugal right so if I'm a citizen of an EU country France is one of those if I'm French I can just move to Portugal it's not quite as it's quite quite the same as saying I'm moving from California to Florida but you can kind of think of it that way if you're an American right uh and so I don't have to really I just show up and go through the registration process so they

got this self-sufficient Visa in Portugal again we're doing things in parallel they want to get moving they Want to go and do it now but when it comes time to renew they won't really have to actually do that they'll just say hey now we're here as as French right correct they don't need to renew the residence in Portugal they can simply register the EU citizens at that point and long term it doesn't even have to be Portugal it can be any EU they can move around to any of the other ones and and some of

the tax incentives come and go in some of these Countries I mean you can go to Italy you get 15 years you've got to Greece you get 15 years you gotta you know but uh one of the misconceptions there is his wife is not necessarily entitled to that one right away correct because she's not French correct he is and the kids therefore passed down how does that work well on on the one end uh she can get kind of go with him as a spouse as a spouse of any new citizen common law partner um

correct yeah on a family Reunification and on the other side I believe she has the option of getting the passport in a couple of years even if she's not living there he's in France I think Italy's one of those ones where if you register properly we I know you do this on your side you can register and there's a system within like three or four years later without even having to live in that country just being married to the person you can get the passport right it's a little tricky as I Know it is it

is a bit tricky but we've had it for a couple times yeah including for some some gay couples also yeah in France keep coming up yeah um and I think that just to jump in here that um I believe that when you Google it let's say the even if the client was aware uh if you Google it and you see ah okay so I have a French grandmother French citizenship by the Santa is by the ancestry line is only is only applicable with the first line so Meaningful yes your parent and that's why they thought

that they're not eligible now the good side here is that uh the grandmother and obviously their parent was still alive so the parent could actually get correct citizenship and after the parent gets it then it's the the um obviously the client then it's the wife then it's the kids and voila before the whole family actually gets the gets the password right how now how how long Is that going to take for like the parent to get it because it's longer than citizenship by investment generally that's why someone who's like if they can save a hundred

thousand a year they can make their lives easier they'll often go with that citizenship by investment first while they're waiting again in parallel how long is that that's why actually we decided to firstly get the obviously censorship investment in same kids but as well to Continue to kind of simultaneously actually work on this as well now it it I would take it I would say it takes a couple of years unfortunately but for parent and then the kid yes but compared to for example Italy or anything like that it's faster it's much faster than for

example again the Italy the tricky part is the documentation now we had cases where we managed to find for example the birth certificate but the birth certificate was from uh I don't Know 9020s or so and it was handwritten it was just handwritten on a piece people don't realize for citizenship by the semi I spent nine years now and every year I collect some other document and it's like oh we don't like that one and I kind of eventually just kind of figured out this is not going to work we've had people where they go

and the the town hall burnt down or something with their paper records there's a lot of work that goes into this there's a Lot of work and that's why not always but oftentimes yes yes but in in obviously um that's why we for example have uh the separate team that works on this because it's just citizenship by itself yes because it takes a lot of work and it can take if you do not do it constantly it takes years to just collect the dogs that's what I dealt with yeah exactly I mean we did call

like Gary Indiana but anyway so so he's gonna get in a couple Years he'll be French when's the self-sufficient Visa renew two years so he might just renew that as hey we're still self-sufficient we're still saying kids citizens or Americans whatever they want to do but then when the next renewal comes yeah you know what we're French yeah or four of us are and then here's the the spouse and the French person and plus just to add that if you want to uh honestly to if you're a U.S citizen already and you want to get

Residency in Portugal in this case you would need a property well they already have the property from the D7 Visa that they've previously previously got right it's a plus plus kind of situation no no additional work there the other the other thing that's kind of cool that you were mentioning was once he and he's the one expatriating from the us in the future right if he expatriates as a Saint Kitts and Nevis citizen you would have to go and apply For a Visa generally where you live so there may be a little easier to deal

with in Lisbon than they would be in in Barbados which is the embassy for uh for Saint Kitts but I mean you're still going to the Embassy you're still filling out a form you're still going to be interviewed whereas so in the gap between expatriating as a Saint Kitts Citizen and later becoming French so long as he's not rejected to try and go to the U.S then he can get The French passport and skip that whole Embassy process so for someone who wants to perhaps go back to the US now they could make some law

in the future saying if you left and you're a rich guy I mean to hell with all of you we don't care where you're from but as of now he would be able just to hang out for a couple years and then say hello I'm French with all the other French people going there yeah I mean he wasn't really stuck on going back to the United States right At the moment yeah so he was willing to wait a couple of years which was honestly the best option because if as I said if he did apply

for a Visa got rejected he would have a much harder time or impossible to to get back on a French passport skip this so they took him you said five months for saying kids which I think is pretty good because I do see people I've interviewed people who work with other firms it takes them a year and a half sometimes collecting Paperwork but he could have done the malta program multi-citizenship is kind of a hybrid citizenship by investment they like to call it that you'd take about an extra year right correct 16 17 18 months

yeah they could have done that and that would have cost for a family of five what 1.15 1.2 million dollars something like that so they would have been out what an extra I don't call it an extra million dollars all in and that would Have served as everything but basically by us finding this French passport they saved you know an exchange for him waiting to go to the us an extra year or two he's going to save a million dollars he could have afforded the million dollars but why would you just to speed things up

a year or two in most cases pay the million dollars yeah that's true I mean uh as long as it's kind of cost efficient in terms of citizenship by Descent Why not do it Um and also kind of it will help them achieve his goals um in the same way that Malta passport would and French is like it's really in your blood you probably feel better about it and it's perhaps taken just a wee bit more seriously right correct I mean it's an even kind of more legitimate reason to why you kind of renounced your

U.S citizenship it might be multi-citizens can go to the United States multi-citizens can live anywhere In the European Union it's the same situation and that's something that if you're just in such a hurry but that's what we found out was I mean hey why would you even consider doing that in your particular case when you're happy to spend a little bit of extra money for that one year that your U.S then you'll renounce the same kids then you'll spend a year or two waiting for your parent and then for you to get French then your

kids get it and now you're all pretty Well covered and now you're going to save the hassle of renewing maybe the second time around on the self-sufficient in Portugal yeah I mean just investing a bit more time and kind of entrusting somebody to handle the process they get to save the the million dollars what else uh came up with so uh talk to me about when they moved you said there were some challenges in terms of like they didn't really want asset protection they were happy to kind of Keep their money even I think they

kept some of the money in the U.S which is fine um but what were some of the issues on banking that they dealt with uh so when it comes to banking obviously I think that the they kept they decided to keep some actually the us but U.S accounts um because I mean the US has a pretty pretty good banking system I mean not the recent with the recent things that happened but uh but generally yes now The living in living in Portugal we obviously decided to open one of the bank account to Portugal so that

they can actually pay bills for the house yes per day do they use this is a misconception people think I'm moving to Portugal If I have 10 million dollars in the bank or something I'm moving it all to Portugal yeah that's not true no no of course not there as well I it was our recommendation to kind of movement to keep money and this is what We call planting Flags right you have to figure out what's the best Portugal maybe maybe the best place to live for the lifestyle if you by the way they can

still get that Portugal passport they lived there five or six years and they learn Portuguese they could be French Portuguese Saint Kitts and then four out of five could be American right yeah that's true so they can have that that but I mean and that that's a strategy people could have used but they you know If you're if you can get French faster why not but but people just think like I have to to put everything in one basket exactly and don't ever do that uh trust me I mean it plus when you look at

the work that we actually that you actually need to put in to open a bank account somewhere yeah it's a lot in Europe it's a lot more yeah especially at the high levels like if I go to UBS in Switzerland if I go to all the fancy banks in Monaco to Get residents I mean they put you through the ringer so I think it's often better in Europe to get a transactional account and just set that up there and then if you're not American now you can go and you can open up like the best

account in Singapore and that's going to be a lot more secure than some Bank in Portugal yeah so specifically like I don't live in Portugal like their banks are falling apart great you're not banking there exactly that's true and Plus just imagine it's not just about the documents it's about the forms it's this month this Saturday I remember my stacked when I did when I went through the process in Portugal I mean it must have been I think you did it yeah three years ago it's like 35 pages I didn't know what the hell half

these questions meant I'm like what do they want to know and that's why we're here that's why we're there you know to to actually guide you through the process and to Fill it out for you because if you just start doing that it's oh my God it's just a hassle yeah uh this is the part that no one likes to talk about is the bureaucracy and the form filling and I could that I I personally back in 2016 gave up on one process so we have a family of five living in the United States decided

to move to Portugal they liked the lifestyle not total tax savings partially due to the U.S citizenship being maintained at least Temporarily partially due to Portugal does have some restrictions uh they're going to basically cut their tax exposure by about 80 percent and then later it'll be cut by closer to ninety percent once the U.S is out of the picture for one person living in Portugal working towards citizenship at the same time they got residents just to get the ball rolling getting the French citizenship underway through dissent uh company is outside of Portugal banking's Outside

of Portugal what happened with the royalties from this YouTube channel so first of all they were not even aware that there is a tax on that withholding tax and the first thing obviously that they thought about is kind of putting the channel and the kind of Amazon account in on the company and the company can be the owner of it however for us on our side we kind of saw that that was actually not but not the ideal way to go because even though Malta and The United States have a tax treaty the tax rate

can be complex it can be deemed as a treaty shopping so the best option for them was uh to be in in the personal name of the husband who renounces U.S citizenship as a resident of Portugal as a resident of Portugal correct and I was able to work to reduce that right so um if you sell a book like I have a book for example on Amazon I was able to uh based on a tax residence that I already Had lower that I think to zero um but if you if you're just again if you're

just living in Dubai or something which is again another place everyone's kind of talking about Dubai now that's great for many people but um you know certain things are just not going to work out there because if you have income you know hey you're getting YouTube ads from Americans they're tagging that they're becoming More aggressive correct I mean and that tax in the united in UAE uh is 30 percent great and that's true if I have a dividend stock portfolio yeah I mean it's not only us so Canada it's also Australia sometimes so even if

you have Australian I don't know dividends or yeah U.S Canadian Australian French dividends we went through this German dividend it's all much lower if you live in Europe so if you're all your incomes Coming from running a YouTube channel or selling a book on Amazon or maybe the merch uh or or dividend income capital gains are different but the dividends and the royalties are a problem yeah in that case for for those people UAE definitely wouldn't work unless they want to pay 30 tax right so that's not really it's going to be a worse deal

for you if you want to leave the U.S and you're fine I mean you should go where you want to go but I wouldn't you know You think you're going to a tax-free place so that's what they uh did and you think that's uh it turned out to be a pretty good result everyone's feeling good now yes good so that's a walk through one family and people say oh you can't do it with a family right uh you have to do and they're really enjoying life in Portugal now they are they're pretty happy um obviously

they're saving a lot of Money in taxes reinvesting that money and overall I think there is also a plan for the kids to enroll in the University soon yes yes absolutely uh at the beginning just about that yes they liked Portugal but they also said okay let's test it out let's see if we can actually live there and they're still living there so yeah and I I mean again uh if there's other programs in Europe what's cool about having whether it's through Malta if you don't have the Descent Whether it's through France or whatever else

descent program you have is there are countries that are harder to move to than others as a third country National right so if people want someone wanted to move to like the Czech Republic I mean that's really they kind of cut back a lot of their residence options but if you're an EU member citizen now that's open to you and so some of those countries also have tax incentives so they have lots of opportunities there Yeah I mean they have options obviously they don't know habitual tax regime is for 10 years so they would actually

have to go if they don't want to pay full tax in Portugal so at that point after 10 years kind of they have the European options wide open and they can choose from those whether it's Portuguese citizenship French whatever uh yeah I want to uh Anna Rena thank you so another success story that I think shows uh just how intricate this can be There's probably opportunities out there that you're not aware that you qualify for there are probably pitfalls that perhaps have been oversimplified by folks who are trying to sell you on a particular strategy

and so if you can leverage those two together if you can have someone help you with the process of the bureaucracy the form filling making sure things are moving smoothly you'll get the result a lot faster you'll potentially save money you don't Need to spend and not buy shiny objects you don't need and you'll end up getting things that make your life easier in the end