Comments by "Jeremy Barlow" (@jeremybarlow2291) on "What the TikTok War Means for Entrepreneurs" video.

  1. I agree, Serbia might get into fights with other countries because the Balkans always have had their ethnic beefs, but St. Lucia's neighbors are all mostly fellow Caricom members. The South and Central American countries all pretty much play nice with the islands. Cuba is a wild card potentially, bur mostly just helps other countries with Doctors since the Angolan involvement ended. Canada & Mexico leave most places alone. The EU is certainly pressuring every country to stop being tax havens, but the territorial tax in Gibraltar has gotten no guff even at 10% so St. Lucia's higher territorial tax definitely keeps them off the grey or blacklist. Most developing nations are potentially beneficiaries of China's Belt and Road policy, so if St. Lucia got on their radar it likely ends up being beneficial. For the most part the US takes advantage of the islands as tax havens and tourist destinations, but it is the only country that might bother St. Lucia realistically. It would be hard pressed to call a nation with no military a threat. Even if St. Lucia developed a set of Freeport policies that put it on par with Singapore and made it an attractive assembly point. If it then somehow used the freedom of movement under Caricom to expand it's workforce to rival Singapore which is a similar size land wise, the US would be hard pressed to sell a stable English speaking democracy with a common law system of justice integrated with a unified court for various British Overseas Territories and multiple other former British colonies that are now independent countries as a security threat. I mean if St. Lucia experienced a sudden and rapid economic growth out of nowhere to become the next Singapore and lifted much of the population of the Caricom states out of poverty in doing so, it still wouldn't be much of an economic rival for the US. It may be despised as an entry point for untaxed goods into the US market, or in this day and age more likely as a services empire, but it's not likely to be a home for companies the US or Europe would try to steal.
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  2.  @samjordan8800  I'm not saying a country should take the deal. I'm only saying that China's policies towards a country like St. Lucia are unlikely to be adversarial. Much like US and IMF lending it would be an enslavement policy, that is without question, but Singapore has certainly shown a way to navigate towards development without foreign entanglements even for a resource poor country. The straits of Malacca were a definite advantage, but being close to US, Mexican, Canadian, and South American markets and just far south enough in the Caribbean to have only been hit by 14 hurricanes since 1850 means St. Lucia which is the only CBI country to have retained a territorial tax system after the EU pressure with the blacklist & greylist means it is the one country that I could see using Freedom of Movement under Caricom to attract a workforce to grow into a Singapore through the proper use of tax and investment policies to attract foreign entrepreneurs. If St. Lucia adopted a Virtual Zone Enterprise policy like Georgia, and gave entrepreneurs a relatively inexpensive and renewable business visa/work permit less than the price of a Caymans or UAE work permit, and more than a Cambodian annual business visa, so well below the Cayman Islands fees of potentially tens of thousands of dollars and less than the $2k for a UAE freelancer visa, but more than the $300 for a Cambodian business visa, with an income & social security tax exclusion for key employees of a company with Virtual Zone status employed pursuant to a business visa/work permit for salary & wage income of up to the US foreign earned income exclusion plus the US standard deduction & maybe adopted a Singapore like remittance policy where any money in a Virtual Zone company with a non-exempt bank account was taxed at say 10.5% until 2025 and 13.5% after 2025 to avoid GILTI, I could see digital nomads flocking to St. Lucia to build the next major tech company. I mean it would be easy enough to do, set up a banking regulation for Virtual Zone companies that allowed them to make an exempt bank account election or a non-exempt bank account election when they open an account and you have the ultimate tax planning vehicle for digital nomads and digital expats. If St. Lucia also enacted a Free Industrial Zone Enterprise policy like Georgia or the UAE and offered reasonably priced annually renewable licenses for those companies to allow for duty free import, assembly, re-export, or for the provision of services from those zones it could attract a fair amount of investment as the Philippines have with similar free trade zones. When those free trade zones are coupled with a corporate tax exemption and salary exemptions for key personnel holding business visas/work permits if those fees are low enough St. Lucia will attract a lot of investment and entrepreneurs. They also wouldn't need to impose much of a tax rate because a lot of US companies and US investors would opt into the exempt/non-exempt tax regime with annual remittances to avoid GILTI. I mean 10.5% of five to ten multi-million dollar companies becomes a windfall for a country like St. Lucia. Especially if 5 or 10 thousand small entrepreneurs spend $1500 a year for a work-permit/business visa and maybe another $300 a year for a Virtual Zone Enterprise License for their company with a $500 annual corporate renewal. I mean $2300 a year in fees for a small company to avoid $20k a year in taxes is a pretty good deal for someone with a successful, but small blog for example. If they can set up that St. Lucia business with a visa and work permit that allows them to also get a tax residency certificate by staying in the country for at least one month a year, it becomes really valuable for not only US digital nomads, but also European, New Zealand, Canadian, and Australian digital nomads. St. Lucia, St. Kitts & Nevis, Dominica, Grenada, and Antigua and Barbuda could all supplement their CBI programs with this kind of regime. If they used a Singapore style rule to require a resident Secretary or a resident Director who must be present in the country for at least 183 days & if they implemented annual audit & reporting requirements like Singapore for these companies -even if they allowed for nominee resident directors or implemented minimal substance requirements like a registered office and a certain amount of spending as Malaysia has done for Labuan companies, these businesses would not run afoul of the EU substance requirements. Of course the annual licensing regime would probably provide an adequate substance in and of themselves. The policy should require a stringent KYC process for initial registration and renewal to confirm the identity of key shareholders and personnel too, but for start-ups on a budget the option of the key executive remaining in the jurisdiction on the work permit/business visa would meet most substance requirements.
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