Comments by "dlukton" (@dlukton) on "Nomad Capitalist" channel.

  1. If this office had been set up in the US, NomadCapitalist would get sued for gender discrimination, age discrimination, racial discrimination, and God knows what else. And there would be all manner of expensive legal mandates to comply with. Plus, the rent payment on the office would be 10X higher.
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  2. The US is broke. It's now just living off the treasury debt-fueled fumes of its former glory.
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  3. What an appropriate video for so-called "Independence" day.
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  4. Brian Williams may be saying that the US is "unrecognizable"; but he sure as hell isn't trying to criticize anyone on the left when he says that.
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  5. This is all well and good for someone who's willing and able to do a lot of traveling. But... not so good for those who aren't. Problems inevitably arise in managing real estate.... repairs are needed, tenants refuse to pay rent, etc. Of course, one can hire a property manager. But then one has to "manage the manager"; otherwise there's the risk that the property manager will try to "overstate" the expenses. For those who don't want to have to spend much time in the country subsequent to the real estate purchase, there might be merit to the idea of purchasing farmland (for lease), or just raw land.
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  6. If not for FATCA, I doubt there would be nearly as much interest in cryptocurrencies as there currently is. Also, the US government is able to impose FATCA requirements on foreign banks only because of its control over the SWIFT system. One of these days, an alternative to SWIFT will be developed, at which point there may be many more banks willing to accept US citizens as customers.
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  7. One way for Americans to "stash money" overseas, without (necessarily) having to report it to the US government.
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  8. For me, it's not a binary choice, i.e., "taxation" versus "no taxation". It's more a question of a continuum. If the Federal government spent a mere 5% of GDP on essential services (including the military), I'd say that is not theft. But, of course, the Federal government has gone far, far beyond that. In any case, the question is largely academic.
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  9. Yeah, Cambodian farmland might be a good investment. But $250K for one of their passports is not.
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  10. If I ever become a Russian oligarch, I may become interested in this.
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  11. Yes; plus... money for wars; don't forget about the wars.
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  12. If the socialists (or the "Democratic Socialists") ever get control of the US government, Andrew Henderson will get more business than he'll be able to handle.
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  13. Any country that develops an "eat the rich" mentality is going to pay a price for that.
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  14. "Strike while the iron's hot".
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  15. If the taxman doesn't get you, the inflation genie will (or maybe both of them working together).
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  16. Yeah, sometimes I think about renouncing my citizenship, and then living in California as an illegal alien. As a "foreigner" (at least on paper) living in the US, I could retain my brokerage accounts, and then pay no capital gains taxes; I could have a California driver's license; I could even vote in US elections. On top of that, Biden is probably going to legalize all the illegal aliens, so I could get my citizenship back... and then renounce a second time if I wanted to.
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  17. Two issues: A) does the wealth tax apply to people who spend less than 180 days in Colombia; and B) if a person keeps 99% of his assets outside of Colombia, how is the government going to figure out who owns what assets... in foreign countries?
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  18. Brexit is good. I've never liked the idea of unelected bureaucrats in Brussels dictating to the plebes how much tax they should have to pay, and how they must live their lives. Better to have elected politicians do it... politicians who can be removed from Office by the voters.
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  19. I recall the movie "Die Hard" in which Hans Gruber tried to get at the $640 million in bearer bonds that were located inside the vault at Nakatomi Plaza.
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  20. If Peter Schiff were commenting, he'd point out that, over the last two years, the price of citizenship in St. Lucia has declined from 81 ounces of gold to 51 ounces of gold.... a 37% reduction in price.
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  21. In a related vein, Justin Trudeau issued a statement a few days ago saying that a Canadian trucker could "lose his ability to travel internationally" if he didn't stop participating in the protest.
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  22. I believe it's the case that if a US citizen has a brokerage account (in the US), and then renounces his US citizenship, the renunciation of his US citizenship is effective to eliminate his tax obligation on capital gains that are subsequently realized within his brokerage account. Or, to put it another way, I'm pretty sure that the IRS welcomes investment capital from foreigners, and doesn't try to "punish" them by taxing capital gains that are realized within their US-domiciled brokerage accounts.
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  23. The Turkish citizenship-by-investment in real estate is quite intriguing. The question would be that of how easy it would be to find a competent, reputable, honest property manager to manage the property.
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  24. Income tax in Montenegro is 9%... up to an income of about $10,600 per year; above which the tax is 11%. The municipalities impose an additional tax of 15%. Still good, but not extraordinary.
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  25. I think he likes to spread his wealth around in different countries.
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  26. For me, the benefits of US citizenship outweigh the costs. HOWEVER, I'm not at all convinced that it'll always be that way. Change is coming to the US; and it won't necessarily be good.
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  27. I'm curious about how many people are actually paying this amount of money for citizenship.
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  28. That's certainly true for residents of California. But if a resident of California wanted to move to, say, Panama, he could have (first) just rented an apartment in Nevada for a month or two... and then gotten a Nevada driver's license. That would have made him a legal resident of Nevada, without ever having to spend any time in the state. As another example, it's possible to become a resident of South Dakota after having spent a mere 24 hours in the state.
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  29. It's not just about the skills of the workers, it's also about the propensity for (frivolous) litigation in the US; and all of the costly and burdensome regulations in the US as well.
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  30. I'm hoping that a few of the BRICS-allied countries will decide that they don't need/want to comply with FATCA.
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  31. It's often said that the number of people who renounce US citizenship is very small (relative to the US population); but I would counter this with the question: in what other country do the number of renunciations come REMOTELY CLOSE to what they are for the US (relative to population)...?
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  32. One of the best videos yet.
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  33. This video actually helps to make the case for getting a CBI sooner rather than later. A person could, at a given point in time, be in good health, have no involvement in any civil litigation, be free of any allegations of criminal wrongdoing; and have suffered no rejection of a visa application. But the reality is that, in life, sh*t happens. And sh*t can happen to "good" people. So a person may be eyeing a CBI program thinking that he can just wait until he needs it. But what if he later develops a serious chronic illness? What if he gets drawn into civil litigation? What if....? And even applying for... and then getting rejected by.... a CBI program can provide information that is, in and of itself, of some value.
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  34. Breaking up the US into three countries would be a GOOD thing in many ways.
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  35. His multiple citizenships came in handy.
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  36. In the US, politicians on the left want to chase away the high-earners (i.e., chase them away with high taxes), while letting in impoverished, unskilled illegal aliens.
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  37. @oneswipelifestyle7587  the wealth tax in Colombia is certainly going to harm people who have large real estate holdings ... in Colombia. But for a wealthy foreigner contemplating a move to Colombia, it just seems that he has nothing to fear from the wealth tax, because the Colombian government will have no way of knowing what his assets are outside of Colombia.
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  38. There's one other asset that one can own without having to report, and that would be cryptocurrency. If a US citizen buys a crypto in his own name, and later sells that crypto (with a gain), he is obligated to report it to the IRS. But if the crypto is merely GIVEN to the US citizen, I don't think he really has to report it. So it would seem that a US citizen... call him "Mr. Smith".... could set up an offshore corporation, and pay himself a salary of $107K/year, and his wife a salary of $107K/yr; both of those would be reportable, but exempt from IRS taxation. And for amounts above that, Mr. Smith could form a partnership with a person who is NOT a US citizen; he could then pay that person unlimited amounts of money (using revenues from his corporation), and that person could use the money to buy gold and to put the gold in a vault in the name of Mr. Smith. Alternatively, the business partner of Mr. Smith could purchase cryptocurrency, and then give the cryptocurrency to Mr. Smith. Also, if Mr. Smith owned rental property outside of the US, he could set up a corporation in the name of his business partner (who, again, is not a US citizen). That corporation would be responsible for collecting rental income and managing the property. It would seem then, that Mr. Smith could own rental property without having to report it. Such strategies could be useful for reducing one's tax obligation "in the here and now". But in addition, Joe Biden has proposed to increase the estate tax by eliminating the "stepped up basis cost" provision of current estate law; he has proposed to force heirs of assets to pay capital gains tax on those assets WITHOUT the benefit of a stepped-up basis cost. So a US citizen could (if Biden gets his way) benefit his heirs by holding non-reportable assets outside the US.
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  39. Yes. Government backing of student loans (in the US) has caused universities to raise tuition prices to absurd levels. Similarly, government programs designed to encourage home ownership in the US (e.g., Fannie Mae, preferential treatment of capital gains, and tax deductibility of interest) has caused house prices to be much higher than they would have been without such programs. Government involvement in those markets hasn't necessarily improved matters.
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  40. Bitcoin cash may be quite good for small transactions. But that doesn't make it a superior "reserve asset".
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  41. Yeah, the European governments could very easily implement this; and almost everyone would pay. Of course, they might start off with a tax of 5%; but it wouldn't take long for that tax to rise to 10%, 12%, etc.
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  42. Not a bad idea to hold BOTH gold and bitcoin.
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  43. Of course, as Ben Franklin said (more than 225 years ago): "Where liberty dwells, there is my country"
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  44. Yeah... just visit Europe on a tourist visa.
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  45.  @Beachgirl1  Yes, a less intrusive government is better.
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  46. I'd probably take Argentinean citizenship if i could get it easily. That said, I've never set foot in the country.
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  47. Quote attributed to Thomas Paine: “My country is wherever liberty lives.”
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  48. Yeah, although quite a lot of people have no federal tax obligation at all; many in fact RECEIVE money from the IRS (e.g., the EITC benefits).
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  49. Turkey is quite intriguing. Over time, the economy will recover; the currency will rise... and in the meantime, one can obtain (via investment) a citizenship from a "real country". Still, if I were actually going to invest in property there, I'd want a competent (and honest) property management company to manage it.
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  50. "Democratic socialism" is just a way of "sugar-coating" the reality of socialism.... because it "sells" better to the voters.
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