Comments by "Marvin Fine" (@torontovoice1) on "The Best Countries to Live, Incorporate, and Be a Citizen" video.

I actually spent about an hour and a half with a law firm in Andorra. It doesn't help you if you're an EU citizen because they are sort of a separate country albeit don't have a border. So there's two languages that you have to learn or get by with at least. One is French the other is Catalan. I already speak French having grown up in Quebec so that wasn't a problem. But you know it's cold and it's a really tiny place. So you have to kick up about $50,000 deposit, they treat you like a customer almost. Like you're renting in their country and you have to give a damage deposit. So I asked the guy why do they do that, to which he replied a lot of people skipped out owing debts. So when I analyzed everything, it didn't really fit my criteria. And one of the other things of course was the weather. Coming from a cold country I hated it and I wanted to be in a warmer place. The taxes reasonable there I think it's around 10% but all other things equal, it wasn't for me.
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Another great video as usual. It's somewhat hard to parse all of the different options. And the more options you have, the more complex it becomes. I think it really depends on where a person's at in their life, how much money they have and what's important to them. If you go to a country where English is not the majority language, it really sucks. It's not like you can't learn a second language, most people can. I've learned five already, I'm probably not done yet. But it's a chore to try to speak another language. Especially if you're in a situation where you've got a medical problem or there's an emergency and your vocabulary is so limited but you're unable to articulate exactly what you need to have done. Of course these are the extreme situations, there are many others that are less extreme and just as vexing. I think the thing that's sort of in the back of my mind is what's happening internationally with the minimum 15% tax that countries are trying to impose on the others you know when you think back, tax was supposed to be temporary when it was originally enacted. It's far from temporary now. You notice that the US just enacted a 1% tax on share BuyBacks. You know that just opens the door then they can add a 2% 5% 10% I mean once the tax is in it's easy to modify the rate. I think it's going to be more difficult going forward to live in countries that are tax Havens. And I think you alluded to that as well when you compared paying tax in Malta because it was a whitelisted country. However I'm not sure if it is whitelisted, or at least the banks. I think they're still gray listed. And I spoke to people about moving to Malta, and they did mention a lot of difficulties with the banking there. I think the kyc is just over the top. Setting up structures I think invoke some anxiety to at least myself not knowing if the structures are going to hold, or if the rules are going to change. I think you're much better off to go somewhere where it's a straightforward deal, and you know exactly what's up front and you're able to comply with all the rules and regulations without any expectation of change which could always happen. I think your talk illustrates exactly how difficult choosing a location to move to can be. I guess you could start with a simple truth table. The first question is do you want major English speaking or not? Once you have made that determination, then the list gets whittled down pretty good. Then I think next I would look at healthcare. And I remember you did a talk on healthcare which I found overly simplistic. I think the topic was how much is healthcare actually worth? So you took the total population of the country and the total amount that was spent on healthcare and divided the two together to get a number on what a country spends on healthcare. Could be around 3 to 5,000 for example. And that makes a lot of sense. But you know what if you get a heart attack at 2:00 in the morning, you're dealing with the local healthcare of that country and I think if you're in a third world country with third world doctors and third world equipment, your outcomes might not be the same as say the Mayo clinic or the Cleveland clinic. Of course if it's not an emergency you can jump on a plane and go anywhere. And I guess at the end of the day it might not save you anyway, but it certainly gives you a piece of mind. The other thing that you didn't talk a lot about was the weather and the relative number of things to do in a country. For example you talked about the Bahamas. I inquired about the Bahamas. It's really hot like unbearable in the summer, and the cost of electricity is around 40 cents a kilowatt hour. It cost you more air conditioned your place than with the rent or the cost of carrying would be. And healthcare well, not much there, you'll need to jump on a plane and go to Florida. And what are you going to do there? So I think those are other criterias. You know it's not simple, and having someone who is experienced not only in legal aspects and the financial an accounting aspects, but also the lifestyle is also important. I mean what's the good of all the money in the world if you can't enjoy it? That's something you haven't addressed. As usual, great video. Thank you for creating the content
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@jeremybarlow2291 yeah absolutely. It's the reverse argument that you're making. You're a Target if you're a US citizen, or another citizen of a high profile country whom they feel they can extract for benefits. They have nothing to get from a small island, no doubt about that. I understand the argument completely. Thank you for the response
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You know imagine if you have to do a video every day about the same thing, but putting a different twist on it. Well that's his job, and it's certainly not an easy one. When I think about it, it's really quite hard. And one of the benefits he gets of course is having all these people make comments on all his videos and he comes up with interesting ideas from some of the comments. Of course, it's not only what the topic is but also the level of interest that his viewers would have in the particular topic.
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@thomassorheimdanielsen yes I think that's a pretty good analysis. But as an eu citizen you can live in any other country such as Malta or Cyprus where the languages English? And there's no cost to get into either of those as an EU citizen, and the taxes if you're not working in the country will be zero. So over and above that, you have to consider lifestyle choices. Since I haven't been to any of these countries, I can't offer any personal advice. But just like Andrew said, it's really a holistic approach that you take. Don't use just one criteria. I feel a little bit uneasy about living in a country where I don't have the absolute right to be there. So I say that in the same regard as andorra and the UAE. You're really there at their pleasure, you're not there as a matter of right. Now if you're 30, that might be okay. What if you're 60 or 70 do you want to move when you're 80? So I always look at these things from a sense of permanency as well. And you got to be very careful with Spain as I mentioned in a previous post, they're not very good at doing a lot of things, but they are very good at keeping track of people for the purpose of trying to implement tax residency. So if you're there too often and you drive your car across and you have credit card bills from there, you know the story. It's your complete footprint. It's not like the old days where we went on foot and we paid cash. There Is also your cell phone tracking. You know the state of New York started auditing people that claim to have tax residency in Florida using the same sorts of criteria and perhaps even a few others. I think you'd go bonkers staying in a small place like that? And that's just my personal opinion from an academic point of view without actually having done it. Do you think you're going to feel like a foreigner?
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I suppose that's one criteria. The other criteria is being in the wrong place at the wrong time if I could use those words loosely and winding up in the crowbar hotel. Now you're looking for counselor services. Having a US passport versus having a passport from Angola or St Kitts and Nevis does not necessarily afford the same consular services, nor would there be any political weight to any of these consulates. Somewhat troubling I think. Several months ago for example there was a guy that took a picture of the palace in Istanbul. He wound up in jail and it was only as a result of strong counselor services that he was able to get out of jail. Look at that poor woman in Russia who just got sentenced 9 years in jail for having a vial of cannabis oil in a pipe. Now I think they're working on trying to get her out, and maybe this was their plan right from the beginning. I don't know. But they do have some Russians that are in jail for like 20 years who did some serious f**** s***. Pardon my French. So having a strong passport at least one is certainly beneficial if things go awry.
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Obviously when you compartmentalize an option for a particular minority group such as the ones you alluded to, speaking to a very select group of people. For example, he did a video on Israel. I don't know if you know that but this is a Jewish country and if you're not Jewish you'll practically never gets citizenship unless you marry an Israeli and even then under very strict conditions. In fact they may not never give you citizenship just residency and when the relationship dissolves, your residency goes along with it. On the other hand, if you're Jewish they roll up the red carpet hand you about $20,000 worth of benefits on application, give you a passport pretty well immediately in other words citizenship, enroll you in language courses and do everything they can to acclimate your stay. And not only that, but you certainly don't need a consultant to help you immigrate, they have companies that do everything for you which are paid for by the government and they're completely free. Not very many countries offer these kinds of benefits. Moreover you got a 10-year tax benefit I'm all for an income for the first 10 years. But obviously there's one caveat, it applies to Jewish people only for people that have at least one Jewish grandparent. And the passport is pretty good, they are expecting Visa free access to the US in the next few years as well but you can certainly go Visa free to Canada Australia and New Zealand as well as many other countries.
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@nomadcapitalist you're absolutely doing a great job, and the innovation I'm trying to come up with new content as I said is off the chart. Great work. I think it's very unsettling to get criticism when you try so hard. Anyone who's ever created content before or who has ever written anything before I understand the complexity and the innovation that goes into not only to create content, but to create content that is interesting to your audience and at the end of the day, gives them a sense of confidence to engage you should the need arise. Over and above that, you also get the reputational effect of being an expert in this area.
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@thomassorheimdanielsen pretty interesting you made a lot of good points. I think at the end of the day, if you're not happy where you are even if you're not paying any tax, you won't be happy. You know learning languages is very stressful especially at any age, but the big problem is not learning a language but trying to communicate with doctors, emergencies etc. Going to a store should not be a problem, they'll bend over backwards to try to make a sale. But civil servants wherever they are don't really care. Even as a Canadian, when you go to the province of Quebec and you try to speak English they'll just ignore you. If you speak broken French, they're happy and they'll not only try to help you, but they'll even correct your French
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@thomassorheimdanielsen and thank you very much for the feedback Thomas. Please let me know how things work out for you I'm Andorra. I may still go there. Your comments on the linguistic challenges are interesting. I think most doctors will speak English, because all textbooks and medical journals are written in English. Anything in other language has been translated. Thanks again
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@thomassorheimdanielsen I heard the bond was 50,000 euros not $15,000 euros. Check it out I think you're mistaken. It also has a pretty high cost of living, and it's cold. I hate cold weather as a Canadian. And the other thing is you have to fly in and out of Spain Not sure how the flight connections are to North America
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@thomassorheimdanielsen Thank you for clarifying with such detail. I agree; lifestyle is more important than taxes - to a point!
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@jeremybarlow2291 I don't think I said break the law, but rather when someone is improperly being held, I think the United States has the greatest amount of leverage than any other country in the world. Whether or not they choose exercise it of course is another issue. I'm not suggesting that they would go out and rescue people that committed crimes. Not at all. But look at that poor woman in Russia, all she had was a bit of cannabis. 9 years in jail for that? This is just a situation for them to try to extract or extort something from the United States. But if you had a different passport, what possible leverage could you have? That's the point I was making. Not that having a US passport that gives you the ability to break the law. If you want to do that, I think you need a diplomatic passport then they just deport you
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@jglee6721 I don't think the biggest impediment would be the language. Growing up in Quebec, I speak French as a second language and I can really understand a lot of Spanish already. I should be fluent in about a month albeit with many grammatical errors. But I don't think I would move there as a place to live or to retire. Maybe to visit.
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Well I think it depends how much money you're trying to move around. But you might want to localize your money in a international brokerage firm where you don't necessarily need to move it around. You can get a wise or relevant debit card which you can easily debit money from. Of course that's like small change you know maybe tens of thousands at the most. If you have to move millions around, then you need some real tax advice and that's the kind of advice you would get from someone knowing nothing about your situation and having limited skill and expertise. You might want to start with KPMG
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It certainly provided quite an extensive menu, to say the least. Now you got the biggest problem of all, choosing where to go!
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@triquepersonalwork6369 yeah but what about the wealth tax?
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@thomassorheimdanielsen I was referring to France not Andorra. I think you're right, there's no wealth tax
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@ChrisBakerauthor yeah there's no airport there, so you have to go through Spain.
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@zeltapile2996 I'm not so excited about Andorra. I did have a call with an immigration consultant for about an hour. Even though I'm an EU citizen, it's quite cumbersome to immigrate there, I think the big thing for me is the weather, I hate cold weather. And it's going to be cold there. Next of course is the ability to travel and it's quite a hike as you pointed out to Barcelona. The other thing of course is that English is not a dominant language. It's not too bad for some people, especially if you could speak French. But Catalan and Spanish I think are the most common languages; I guess you could get by in French.
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@zeltapile2996 thinking about Cyprus. Slightly better conditions
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@markpalmer8083 you know I never heard of this place. So I have to look it up. It appears that it's part of Spain? I'm not sure if the taxes are the same as Spain, because they're really awful. They have wealth tax to begin with which is a no no for most people. Why would you want to give up percentage of your wealth to a country every year?
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@markpalmer8083 very interesting. Could you drop me a line. I'd like to speak to you about the taxation if possible. You can reach me on Facebook under my name. I am an EU citizen already so I shouldn't have any problems. Just concerned about capital gains and dividends.
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Is this correct? It's only the first 700 thousand Euros that's exempt. That doesn't help people that have a substantial amount of wealth. Am I missing something?
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@markpalmer8083 yeah but there's still a lot of tax on income, and on dividends and on capital gains. There are other jurisdictions that are much better such as Cyprus for example which has no tax on dividends and capital gains. Also flat taxes in Italy in Greece where you can pay only $100,000 a year.
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@nomadcapitalist you should really try to remove those scammers from spamming the contents on your videos. Thank you for the great content.
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@jglee6721 I know a lot of people talk about Mexico. But for me, it's a little bit too corrupt even though I've been there several times. I don't think I'd want to live there. There is an awful lot of violent crime, and much of the crime is unsolved which means it encourages other people to commit more crimes. The police is corrupt and on the take. I remember we were driving along in one of those open air taxis and the guy said you only allowed to have three people in the taxi and that was four of us. So he said okay if we get stopped, there's a 100 peso fine. So we agreed to pay it sure enough we got stopped. So we gave the driver the hundred pesos to give to the cop as a bribe. Then he comes back and he says hey man, the policeman wants a tip now on the bride!
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@jglee6721 that's a very simplistic way of looking at it. You really don't want to be dealing with corrupt officials when you're in your 60s and 70s and 80s, let alone corrupt medical officials. There's many countries in Europe that are not corrupt well less corrupt. I would suggest you open up the internet and look for transparency international corruption perception index. You can see all the countries in the world and their level of corruption. Choose one that's less than 50 out of 185. As you get deeper into the stack it becomes problematic. I know that in Thailand there is the allure of the two-legged entertainment which is world-renowned, but so are all the scams associated with it not to mention having one of the highest HIV ratings in the world. All the money in the world won't help you if you're infected with HIV. I would think you probably be better off with places like Portugal which has a similar cost of living and a whole lot better. There's also Malta of course and the island of Cyprus both of which are English-speaking and have good healthcare. In fact Malta has really good healthcare and a very big medical tourism industry. Anyway that's my two cents, but I think you should really think it through and go slow. Find the country that works for you.
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@ameer20550 send me a fb message. I am listed under my name from Toronto and we can discuss it privately
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@jglee6721 it takes a lot of hard work for everybody to pick up a language. It's about memorizing a whole bunch of words, and then programming your brain to be able to compartmentalize words into meaning. So let's say for example English my dominant language. I know 55,000 words in English out of the 250,000 that exist. To speak a basic language you need about a thousand to 1200 words. The Hebrew in the Bible for example contained only 300 different words as an example. So if you're trying to speak another language and you only know 1,000 or 1200 words, you have to be able to convert the meaning into words that are simple. So when you initially start learning a second language you tried to translate from your dominant language into the second language. That never works. So after a while you have to be able to think in the second or third language and then the word start to just flow. Now obviously you won't know all the words that you need, but over time your vocabulary increases. Of course your grammar will be full of errors unless you study the language academically. But there are lots of people that are bilingual, trilingual, quadrilingual, and even pentalingual.
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@jglee6721 yeah I suppose you can we're going to country without speaking the language. But the encumbrances are staggering. Especially if you get sick and you have to go to a hospital and no one speaks English.
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@jglee6721 maybe in theory yes, but I was spoken to people who have moved to Spain and one of the main reasons why they left was because they didn't want to speak Spanish even though they had access to learn for years. I know I speak several languages and when I speak English it just flows naturally, but when I speak another language especially after a little while it's a real chore.
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