How To Travel The World & Pay No Tax - Nomad Capitalist

1. 0:00 – 3:28

   What Nomad Capitalist Does

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      How do you describe what you do for work when you meet someone at a cocktail party?

   2. AHAndrew Henderson0:07

      I like to say that I help people go where you're treated best. Those are five magic words. I learned them from my father at a very young age. He gave me a permission slip, I did not have to stick around where I'm from. Um, I didn't have to stick around and take care of my parents 'cause they didn't want their kids taking care of them. They wanted their kids to go where the best opportunities were, and he thought back in the 1990s where I grew up in the United States that there would be better opportunities by the time I got around to being in business. And so, what I've discovered is if you live in the United States or if you live in a country like it, you're probably paying way too much in tax. I'm not saying you should pay zero, but you're probably paying too much for what you're getting. Um, there's probably some things holding you back. Uh, I think what we're seeing now is there's a lot of opportunities in business around the world, and increasingly this multi-polarity where the US is pitted against other places, and so there's gonna be a choice, which market do you want to sell to? Uh, and so we help people at Nomad Capitalists reduce taxes, become dual citizens, find opportunities around the world that most people don't talk about. Uh, 'cause I'm a pretty contrarian guy, and I think that what we think is the best is often not.

   3. CWChris Williamson1:21

      It's strange, having read and listened to a good bit of your work, it's... (laughs) From first principles, it's kind of weird that people presume, "Well, this is the place that I was born, so this is the place that I'm supposed to work and live and die and bank and pay taxes and date." All of these things.

   4. AHAndrew Henderson1:38

      Date. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, uh, you know, I was born in Cleveland, Ohio in the US, uh, right on the lake and right across the lake from Canada. And I look and I say, "What if, you know, I'd been born right across that lake?" I mean, in the grand scheme of things, that lake is a pretty small, pretty small thing. And if you're a Canadian, uh, you can leave your country and you can leave your tax burden behind for one thing. You don't have to follow Canadian regulations when you live overseas, uh, you have a passport that for years... I mean, it's, it's the joke, uh, that people respect you a lot more and people are more open to giving you a bank account in other countries. Just take, like, life as a global citizen's a lot easier. Life just as a Canadian traveling is a lot easier. Um, you know, people aren't picking on you. And to say that you're born that close to where your identity would've been different, I mean, to me just shows, uh, the miracle of birth. But not only, you know, if you... The movie Midnight in Paris talked about, you know, were we born in the wrong part of, you know, Earth's history, you know? Would you rather have been born 50 years ago? You know, we can't change when we were born, but we can certainly change where we were born. And if we weren't born in a place that we want, um, we can change that. I also happen to think, as my father said, sure, when I was born in 1984, the United States, according to the sur- the studies that do this, it was the best place to be born, but there wasn't a lot of competition. I'm talking to you from Malaysia. I think it's the best value destination in the world for someone who can work from anywhere, and you would've never even been talking about it in 1984, but you can talk about it today. And so there's a lot more competition. The world changes, the world evolves. And even if you were born in the right place, maybe it's not the right place today.

   5. CWChris Williamson3:27

      What about

2. 3:28 – 7:56

   Overcoming Cultural Displacement

   1. CWChris Williamson3:28

      cultural displacement? I was born in the UK and I live in America on an O-1 visa, and-

   2. AHAndrew Henderson3:35

      Yep.

   3. CWChris Williamson3:35

      ... I... There's part of me that, that does feel culturally displaced. You know, a lot of the, um, way markers that you would, references and things from history and things from your past and stuff from culture and stuff from all the rest of it, that, that can be a little bit disquieting. What's that like as a global citizen?

   4. AHAndrew Henderson3:53

      Well, obviously different places have different cultures. I think that if you look at it in a sense, we're all the same. Obviously we all have the same motivations. Um, in a sense, we're very different. There are places that I think it is difficult to adapt. Um, I think that part of my background in the United States coming from a very humble background probably caused me at times to spend a bit more time in places where people were a bit less agreeable. Um, because you're t- you're taught, you know, where I'm from, uh, that, you know, look inwardly first. Uh, but let's take Malaysia for example. I think you have probably some of the kindest people in the world. It's a quality that I've looked at as being extremely important. Um, I look at a place that I've spent more time in the last year next to where you're from in Ireland, um, some of the most polite and kind people, uh, and welcoming people in the world. They've done an incredible job, you know, transforming their country in the last 30 or 40 years. Uh, and I say to myself, I mean, those are important markers. So I think that the things that we're used to... Uh, sure there's places where I go and I still have an American mindset and it's frustrating. And I was just, you know, just talked to my team yesterday. We've got people all over the place. You know, we're gonna run this like a business run by a guy who's from the United States, and yet being out of the United States for many, many years causes one to develop an international mindset to where if I were to go back to the US today, I think I'd feel very culturally displaced from there. Because number one, I'm politically homeless. I don't agree with Trump on everything. I certainly don't agree with Biden on everything. Um, and yet if you don't agree on everything, it seems for a lot of people, you're a communist or you're a fascist. Um, I think that people are at each other's throats where I'm from. I think that would be the ult- ultimate cultural displacement that someone who's kind of developed an international sense of, um, of thought wouldn't be very welcome there today.

   5. CWChris Williamson5:45

      How many passports and bank accounts and stuff do you have?

   6. AHAndrew Henderson5:49

      I think it's five passports now. Always looking for a new... I, I, I had a coach who said, "How about we, how about one new passport and one new property a year?" The properties, I decided I, I kind of got pied-a-terres around the world because I like to split my time up, have employees in different places. Kind of got tired of staying in hotels, but okay, the passports, I think for now, I'm good. Um-Yeah, we've opened probably dozens of bank accounts all over the world. We have multiple companies around the world. Um, we invest in things like stocks all around the world. Um, and as I said, I mean, we're really, at- at my business, Nomad Capitalist, I mean, we're expanding, uh, to hire people around the world. We've largely been kind of Europe-focused over the years. Um, but we're really doing a lot of work now in Latin America. Um, hopefully soon in Asia. So, uh, I mean, for me, uh, they call it planting flags. I wanna have as many flags as possible, uh, but I want them to be correspondent to what the opportunity is. I live in Malaysia because as someone who can work from... And I live in Malaysia most of the winters now. As someone who can work from anywhere and who can live anywhere, for me, the idea of paying $10 million for this apartment, um, and then paying five or $6 million in tax because Singapore can demand that just as a one-time, you know, purchase for a foreigner, I don't have to do that to live in a place that's marginally easier, uh, to live in than Malaysia where, you know, this place is 600 grand and everybody marvels at how cheap that is for what you get. Uh, and yet if I want a bank, I trust Malaysian banks, but Singaporean banks to me are the gold standard. So I'm looking for all the places around the world where I can take advantage of, what are you the best at? And the reality is when we say, you know, go where you're treated best, the place where you're from, they're probably not the best at anything.

   7. CWChris Williamson7:34

      (laughs)

   8. AHAndrew Henderson7:35

      Um, the US does not have the best banks. They don't have the safest banks. I mean, they have the most bank failures of any country in the world combined. Um, so but if they are g- if they are the best at something, you sh- you should, you should use it for that. Um, I'm looking for places that are the best and I'm planting flags there, and I think places all around the world are the best at something.

3. 7:56 – 11:11

   The Different Elements of Long-Term Travelling

   1. AHAndrew Henderson7:56

   2. CWChris Williamson7:56

      How do you conceptualize the different elements that a person has to manage or play with, uh, country of residence, bank accounts, tax status, stuff like that? Is there a series of knobs and levers that we're playing with?

   3. AHAndrew Henderson8:09

      Yeah, I think so. I mean, what, what I decided to do in our business was to make it based on what I've experienced. I mean, a lot of people out there will help you get a passport in the Caribbean. Um, but I thought, there's a real-world challenge of going out and doing this step. It can be tough. I mean, you go to banks, a lot of banks don't wanna take non-residents these days, for example. But yeah, I, I broke it down and I'm continuing to add things to this day. I mean, you mentioned dating. I think that's a great one to add. Where should you be dating? Um, I just had a, an, a guy who works for me, he lived in Ireland, he broke up with his girlfriend of seven years. Okay, obviously there's a bit of the rebound phase going on, but I took him to a couple of our offices. We had some work to do around, uh, other parts of kind of Eastern Europe, and it was a dramatic shock that like, "Wow, these people are much more interested in me, uh, than maybe someone back home where I'm just kind of standard fare." And I think that if you just look at everything in life and saying, "Am I doing this the best?" people probably ask themselves similar questions just without the geographical element. So I decided to add this overlay of geography to it.

   4. CWChris Williamson9:18

      Okay, so tax is one that's important, how much tax you are paying, uh, ability to invest, bank accounts, quality of life. What else am I missing from the big-

   5. AHAndrew Henderson9:28

      Uh-

   6. CWChris Williamson9:29

      ... the big buckets?

   7. AHAndrew Henderson9:30

      ... where's your company based? Which, I mean, in, in part is based on where you live, right? I mean, so the, the, the, the mistake is if you live in the United States but you put your company in the British Virgin Islands, you could avoid tax. I mean, they figure that one out, right? I mean, you have to, to move as well. But if you live in a tax-friendly place like a Malaysia, um, you can have your company in a number of places that serve you well. Um, where are you hiring people? Where do people have the best attitudes? Um, I don't know that we're paying people that much less than we'd pay them in the US. Um, they're certainly probably keeping more money than they would to an equivalent American, but we can start off paying them less to begin with and then quickly scale them up. Once the risk is, risk is reduced, we can hire more people, try more things. Um, so I think for a business owner, those are important elements. Where's your business based? Where are the employees based? And they all work together. But then again, there's the personal things. Where's your data stored? Um, you know, if you're in crypto, I think people should perhaps have a ledger and the ledger should be stored somewhere that's an asset haven. Where's your precious metals stored? Um, you know, I, I, I, I've always liked lightweight business models my entire life. I started my first business at 19. I never wanted to have a business where I had to buy a ton of assets, I had to have a factory. ... I think it's a business, uh, 'cause then you could just be profitable immediately and then you scale, uh, and nobody owns you. I think the same thing about life. If I wanna live in Malaysia, do I really wanna be, you know, dragged down to all my stuff is stored in Malaysia, if I own certain investments, it's all sitting in my living room? I, I, I wanna run a kind of a lightweight lifestyle where I'm flexible. Um, I, I think that's the name of the game this y- uh, in this century.

4. 11:11 – 15:02

   Owning a Passport Vs Being a Nonresident

   1. CWChris Williamson11:11

      What's the difference, can you explain to me, between owning a passport, being a citizen, being a resident, having a visa? What, what, what do all of these different things mean?

   2. AHAndrew Henderson11:22

      Citizens... So, I mean, generally speaking, citizens are entitled to get a passport. There's some things where, you know, a stateless person can apply for a passport and then what's the nationality? But generally speaking, if you're a citizen, you can apply for a passport. So a passport's a travel document. You wanna be a citizen. Um, you know, I've been talking, there's, there's kind of a, the latest version of an old scam, the Mexican passport scam, where some guy puts your name in the system and they can print out a passport, but you don't have any of the formal stuff that shows you've actually been naturalized. And eventually, at least historically speaking, people start traveling with these passports and they eventually have a problem 'cause you're not really a citizen. So you'll wanna go through the proper channels to become a citizen, and therefore to get a passport. Um, so there's any number of ways to get a passport. You know, if you have a, a parent or a grandparent or a great-grandparent in many cases who comes from somewhere, you could potentially go back and get that citizenship-

   3. CWChris Williamson12:14

      You can go back to-

   4. AHAndrew Henderson12:15

      ... um, so you have-

   5. CWChris Williamson12:15

      ... you can go back to a great-grandparents' generation and knock on the door of the embassy and say, "Hey, I fancy a passport."

   6. AHAndrew Henderson12:22

      In some, they even took it back even further. Um, like Italy, for example, as long as Italy existed, or Slovakia, they even went back one, one further recently. Yeah, um, you have to get your documents. Obviously, the further back, the harder it is to prove, and there are some exceptions, like in the case of Italy, if somebody became American before you were... before the next one was born, there was no dual citizenship. I mean, there's some caveats. But yeah, you can go back through your family tree and you can track that and you can get a citizenship that way. There's citizenships you can invest in, um, about a dozen formal programs and a number of informal programs, where if you're starting a business and hiring 20 people, there's probably a country that would like to give you citizenship in exchange for doing that. If you wanna make a donation to a Caribbean country, they'll give you a passport in a matter of months. And then, of course, you can just go and live in some country and eventually become naturalized. Two or three years in Argentina up to, you know, 30 years in San Marino in, in Europe, you know, or, or something like that. Um, and so to be a resident gives you permission to live somewhere. A country like Malaysia is never really gonna give anybody citizenship. Asian countries, it's not really their thing. Citizenship is kind of an ethnic thing, but you can be a resident, and so I can have a residence permit for a certain period of time, as long as I, you know, keep my nose clean, as long as I maintain whatever got me the permit, whether I'm married to a citizen, whether I invested, whether I did, you know, started a company, I'm a resident. If you're a resident in a European country, you can, you know, if you go to the UK six years, you live there X number of days a year, eventually you can apply for citizenship. And so, you know, there's different ways to look at this. (coughs) Ireland, for example, if you live there for five years, you can apply for citizenship. Arguably one of the best passports in the world, not only in the European Union, but also has access, you can live and work in the UK. Everyone likes the Irish. Um, and yet you can live in Ireland for those five years as a special tax status that locals don't have, but that foreigners can avail themselves of. So, you could live in Ireland, speak English, have all the services, pay some tax, but not the full 52% people are paying on their salaries, and then get one of the best passports in the world. So, there's different ways to approach it. Plenty of Americans now just want a... they want a residence permit in Mexico, or Argentina, or Malaysia, as a place to go and be welcomed. They want a citizenship just in case something happens, uh, they want a citizenship because, I think, in the future, being an American will be bad for global business. Uh, and I've seen that myself. Um, but some people wanna move. So, it's, you know, is this a plan B? Is it a backup? Or is it like, "Hey," what I did, "I don't wanna live here anymore. How do I move somewhere else? How do I navigate the world?"

5. 15:02 – 29:06

   Is it Good Financially to Be a US Citizen?

   1. AHAndrew Henderson15:02

   2. CWChris Williamson15:02

      Yeah. How, just how badly does the US rank on your global list of places from a tax and financial perspective?

   3. AHAndrew Henderson15:11

      I don't know if we ranked it on t- tax. I mean, it is the one country that, just across the board, taxes citizens no matter where they live. Here's the international view. I'm a pretty libertarian guy. I believe in lower taxes. I don't know why you have to pay so much tax in the US, especially 'cause you get nothing. Even my father shares the same view. He likes to travel to Germany now. He likes to travel to Europe. He's like, "All right, you know what? At least here they're getting something." You don't get anything in the US. And even all that said, I know no one ever signed up to pay high taxes, but if you live there, you know the deal in the US, you gotta pay the high taxes. If you don't wanna pay them, you should be allowed to leave. But the US is the one country that, without restriction, taxes you no matter where you live. Now, if you're a business owner, you can incorporate your business somewhere offshore, you can pay yourself as an employee of that offshore company and, and legally not have Social Security tax, you can exempt a whole bunch of money, you can defer additional money at a pretty low rate. I'm not saying you're gonna move overseas and pay the exact same taxes. We help Americans pay a lot, lot less. But you still have to file, you still have to keep track of all the rules. Um, what happened when I gave up my US citizenship was I was suddenly able to access a lot more of my company's capital. Our company is a cash flow company. We don't have to reinvest at all for our growth. I took some money out. I built the collection of pied-a-terres up, so now I can travel around and live the lifestyle that I talk about, always having somewhere comfortable to go. I couldn't do that... I've got an apartment here in Kuala Lumpur that's owned by a company. Nobody in the jurisdiction of the company understands it. Nobody in Malaysia understands it. It was done for one reason. It's the legal way for me to acquire real estate as a US citizen without paying a huge amount of tax. And so there's all these restrictions that Americans have. Again, if you stay in the US, pay your taxes. If you wanna vote, if you think Trump's gonna lower your income tax rate 2%, good luck. But if you leave, you should be allowed to leave. And I think that Australia's tiptoeing in the way that the US is going. Canada, there's been people talking about it. There's this notion now that citizenship is not as much a privilege as it is a responsibility.

   4. CWChris Williamson17:27

      It's an obligation.

   5. AHAndrew Henderson17:28

      That even if you don't drive on the roads, even if you don't send your kids to schools, why aren't you paying? Because you're American, you should pay for the privilege. Well, wait a second, I didn't choose to be born here. And again, I was born 50 miles from Canada. And so for me, that's what's pretty unfair. And so in that regard, it must rank like the lowest of all. I mean, my friend is from Norway, and if he just leaves the country and moves to Dubai, in the first three years, uh, he has to pay a certain amount of tax. But after that three years, he's done. And if he moves to any number of nice countries that they like, he's done. So that's like a, that's like a very, very small version of what the US does, but the US, for as long as you are a US citizen, you have to pay. And you know what? If I liked the US so much, I'd be willing to pay that low rate of tax, but for me the issue is I think it's offensive...... that there's this idea that since the Civil War, just having that citizenship means you should have to pay. If I live there, I'll gladly pay, that's the deal. I was fully compliant when I lived there. I didn't agree with the rates, but you follow the law. I think people should have the chance to leave, and I think anything else is kind of like, uh, it's abuse.

   6. CWChris Williamson18:36

      Isn't there, wasn't there one other country with that global tax thing?

   7. AHAndrew Henderson18:42

      S- yeah. It was funny 'cause I had an employee of mine, they said, "Oh, I have an Eritrean taxi driver," this eastern African country next to Ethiopia, I guess it broke away from Ethiopia in the '90s, I think. And they imposed a diaspora tax, I think it was 2%, uh, on anybody who's living overseas. And I think that they're like, "Oh, if you wanna renew your passport, show us you pay the tax." It really wasn't enforced because as you can imagine, like, the United States has a lot more global power to influence banks and set up IRS offices and everything else than Eritrea does. Um, you know, war-torn, kind of the North Korea of Africa. Um, and she's like, "Yeah, the guy says he doesn't pay the, the diaspora tax." Uh, so yeah. They do it. Um, again, there's other countries that in limited circumstances do it. Australia is kind of tiptoeing in. I think you'll see more countries doing a de facto version of it, as in it's already kind of the fact that if you're leaving a country like Australia or like, Canada maybe, um, and you just kind of live a totally digital nomad lifestyle with no base, eh, did you really leave? Maybe you should still pay us. So, it's getting worse, which is why I think having second passports is important. I'm not opposed to paying. Listen, I- I- I will spend some time in Ireland, and I will pay something, but I don't think... I mean, for 50% of your income, you know, it's easy to make 40 grand and to say, "Hey, I'm happy to pay my, my four grand." No one's arguing with that. When you run a business that makes a lot of money and the government almost gets in your way more than, uh, they're helping you, and you realize, "Well, wait a second. Over there, they're doing it with 5% tax. What- why do you need 50?" And oh, by the way, have you been to Dubai recently? The roads are a heck of a lot better than they are in Cleveland where I'm from. Wh- where's this money going? So, uh, I- I think there's a certain class of countries where they're clamping down because they don't like the competition that I'm talking about. They don't realize, I can come to Malaysia with a territorial tax system. My company could be based somewhere else. Maybe I'll pay a little bit of tax on my own personal salary, but my company will be entirely tax-free and I can take a dividend, and I can pay a couple of percentage points of tax at the most, and I- I support the com- the country, I buy a lot of stuff, maybe I employ some people, and they're happy with that. Australia and the US and Canada don't like that. Malaysia does like that.

   8. CWChris Williamson21:08

      What is the process of saying, "I don't want to be an American anymore?" What is that?

   9. AHAndrew Henderson21:15

      You go to a US embassy overseas, obviously all the embassies are overseas.

   10. CWChris Williamson21:18

       Hang on, hang on. So you have to leave... (laughs) you- you can't tell America in America that you don't wanna be American anymore?

   11. AHAndrew Henderson21:24

       No, because once you... Right, 'cause generally speaking, there's two appointments. You go in the first appointment, they kind of explain it to you. "Are you sure you wanna do it?" Okay. And then generally, it's like, come back. It could be, you know, the same day, it could be a week from now, it could be six months from now in some- some countries. Depends on which embassy you're dealing with. Um, but after that second appointment, you- you leave your passport and you walk out and you're still in this kind of transitional status. The State Department hasn't approved it yet, um, which is generally kind of just a de facto process. Um, but I mean, you're- you're in a sense not an American anymore, so I mean, uh, you- you can't walk out back onto US soil, like what, they're- they're gonna deport you to where? I mean...

   12. CWChris Williamson22:00

       Oh, of course. Wow, yeah.

   13. AHAndrew Henderson22:03

       Yeah. You're done.

   14. CWChris Williamson22:03

       I didn't even, I didn't even think of that. How funny. So there is, I mean...

   15. AHAndrew Henderson22:07

       Ye-

   16. CWChris Williamson22:07

       If you didn't plan this correctly, you could have no passport.

   17. AHAndrew Henderson22:13

       They generally, like, they'll ask me, and I will say the most professional experience I've ever had with the US government was my expatriation. Like, I would even say kind, uh, were the people. Now, not everyone has that experience, um, but I did. And they're like, "Hey, we wanna make sure. Can you... Do you wanna show us you have another passport just to make sure? We don't want you to be stateless." There is, there are a couple people who've chosen to be stateless, and then they have to go and like get some stateless travel document. It's really confusing. No one's ever gonna understand (laughs) . Like, don't- don't travel if you wanna do that. You're gonna have a tough life. But yeah. I mean, theoretically, I guess if the embassy doesn't force you to, uh... Not every s- and not emba- not every embassy is gonna force you to prove that you have another passport. Um, I remember there's a story of a guy, back when dual citizenship was far less common, I met this guy who lives in Vanuatu. He renounced in the '70s because he wanted to become a Vanuatu citizen to be on equal footing for business, and you could not be dual so he had to give up the US. There's no US embassy in Vanuatu, so he flew to Australia. They took his passport. He's like, "Well, how do I leave Australia now?" They're like, "Well, that's not our problem."

   18. CWChris Williamson23:18

       (laughs)

   19. AHAndrew Henderson23:18

       And there was this whole discussion of like, "Well, you can just hang out for 90 days and we'll deport you and we'll- we'll- we'll figure out where to deport you to," and then eventually you figure something out.

   20. CWChris Williamson23:26

       Free flight back to Vanuatu.

   21. AHAndrew Henderson23:28

       (laughs) Back to Vanuatu. Eventually, he got like an emergency passport or something and he got sent back, but-

   22. CWChris Williamson23:33

       Wow.

   23. AHAndrew Henderson23:34

       Um, yeah. I mean, there is a little bit of planning required.

   24. CWChris Williamson23:38

       Yeah. Jesus. What about exit tax? When you left, is there, is there... What is that? Is there such a thing?

   25. AHAndrew Henderson23:46

       So yeah. There's, the US has an exit tax. By the way, a lot of countries, I mean, this is one thing people pick on the US. I get why they do it, um, because the idea is if you made a whole bunch of money here, you don't just get to wipe the slate clean and pretend that money wasn't made while you were a US citizen. Um, much of my wealth now was made when I was living overseas. We can't argue it's those roads and bridges that are doing it for me. But, um, they would say, "Well, you are still a US citizen, you still have our support." Um, if you have two million dollars or more, if you earned, what's the inflation adjusted number for this year? I don't know, probably if you- if you- if you pay like 800 and some thousand dollars in income tax federally-... over the last five years, if that's what your income tax bill was for the last five years, or if your taxes aren't in compliance, which you can, you can bring them into compliance before you expatriate. Um, so if any of those things are, are applicable, then you've gotta pay an exit tax for basically they sell your assets on paper. So we've had clients who come to us where the first time they come to us, they have, you know, $10 million... Their business is worth $10 million. And so if they leave, you know, they started it for zero, that's a $10 million gain, whatever that is, that's the tax, minus a small exemption. They're like, "Well, I can't afford that." Then they come back two years later, now it's worth 50 million. They can't afford-

   26. CWChris Williamson25:03

       Mm-hmm.

   27. AHAndrew Henderson25:03

       ... to renounce.

   28. CWChris Williamson25:03

       (laughs) Yeah. I have a f-

   29. AHAndrew Henderson25:05

       Right? Because, I mean, they didn't-

   30. CWChris Williamson25:05

       (laughs) I have a friend in, uh, in Canada who has a number of businesses that have grown an awful lot, and he, he literally isn't able to pay the money to leave.
6. 29:06 – 43:18

   How to Travel to Pay Less Tax

   1. AHAndrew Henderson29:06

      are.

   2. CWChris Williamson29:07

      What should people do if they don't wanna renounce their American citizenship, but they do wanna try and dial their tax back?

   3. AHAndrew Henderson29:14

      Well, if, I mean, if, again, if you're British, if you're Canadian, if you're from anywhere else, you should just find another place to live. If you are American, uh, I didn't renounce immediately. I, I, I, I remember my father read, um, how the tax system worked. I mean, he would come home and read articles from the Wall Street Journal when I was a teenager, and I said, "Wait a second, if you don't live here, you don't have to pay? That's ridiculous." He's like, "Well, it says here you can renounce your citizenship." I'm like, "Maybe I'll do..." At 13, I'm like, "Maybe I'll do that," 'cause that seems ridiculous that they trap you like that. But nevertheless, I didn't move overseas and immediately renounce. I took advantage of dramatically lowering the taxes. So if you're an investor, you're at a disadvantage. So right now, you know, bitcoin's up, and I was telling everybody, "Move out of your high tax country." Be- when Bitcoin was at 16,000, now it's at 45,000, uh, 'cause you would've saved that whole $29,000 delta in capital gains tax. As a, as an American, investment is passive. Puerto Rico is an option. That's pretty much your option if you wanna lower your taxes on passive investments. But if you run a business, and a business defined as not a one man or one woman show, but a business with some employees and it can function without you, you can incorporate that business in some tax haven. I think if you're an American, it probably should be a zero tax jurisdiction just so the two systems don't fight too much.

   4. CWChris Williamson30:31

      What would that be like? What would be an example?

   5. AHAndrew Henderson30:34

      Um, well the UAE not really anymore. That was the one people think about is Dubai, I mean they've really come in. I had a, one of our wealthiest clients of all time message me the other night, "I love the UAE but uh, this new nine percent, not a fan." Uh, Hong Kong still has a decent system. I mean, depending on the business. You know, the British Virgin Islands. There's also multiple structures. I mean, you're probably not gonna be running robust payment processing or any of this, so maybe there could be a US element to your business to do things like credit cards, but maybe the parent company's gonna move somewhere else. And so it depends, like if the parent company... I mean, many different things, but you know, traditional tax havens, British Virgin Islands, Isle of Man, probably more difficult than it should be, Hong Kong now, um, you know, Panama is not as robust but that's an option. Um, Belize, not so robust. Um, depends. I mean, here in Malaysia, Labuan is three percent, but, uh, set up a company in probably a zero tax jurisdiction, figure out some kind of structure depending on what your business needs, depending on how people pay you, uh, take a salary from that company. If you're married and you both work in the business, both take a salary. Obviously I'm not giving, this is not formal tax advice. Um, but if you're married, potentially you can take out close to about 250 grand, um, you can avoid Social Security and Medicare tax, and then on the rest of it you're gonna pay some lower rate of tax. And so then the question is, if you can use things like tax treaties or tax credits to pay that low rate of tax to some other country and then take it agai- as a credit against the US, you know, rather than moving to a zero tax country, do you move to a country where you can pay five percent tax, in Europe for example? And then you use that as an offset against the US, 'cause you were gonna pay the US anyway, you might as well put some tax into Europe and then live in Europe if you want to and then work towards your passport in five years. So like these are the kinds of things that go into it. Um, if you're gonna be an American these days, you're gonna have to pay something if you make more than six figures. Um, and again, you know what? If you like the country and you want the option to go back and you're like, "Hey, for 10 years let me pocket a boatload of cash," uh, fine. Keep the US, pay the US. I, I'm not opposed to paying some tax. I'm just a guy who didn't wanna live in the US, didn't wanna be American, and so why would you not want to be something and pay for the privilege? If you like being it, pay ten percent! Pay eight percent! I mean, that's not so bad. It's a lot better than what you're paying now. Keep the American passport. You're not gonna get as good a deal as, as you would as a, as a UK citizen, just being able to pay zero, but such is life. Um, the challenge though is, again, that passive income comes, are you gonna sell the business for 50 million dollars in the future? 'Cause that's where they're gonna nail you. And so that's the issue where you might wanna look at, if you're only concerned about tax planning, expatriation. Because if you can argue that your business is only worth one million today, and you only have a million dollars in other assets, maybe you're under that two million dollar threshold and you could leave with no exit tax at all. And then once the business grows, you know, I mean, I... A- again, tax was not really my motivator for leaving. It was the frustration of, "I don't like the way the country's being run and I don't really feel like I wanna be part of it anyway, so why not just, just expatriate?" But I will say from a financial point of view, the time when that happened was very fortuitous. My business is worth a lot more money now. If I wanted to sell it, I'm gonna save a lot of millions of dollars because I, because I left when it was worth not really that- a lot.

   6. CWChris Williamson33:55

      What's the reality of this Puerto Rico hack?

   7. AHAndrew Henderson34:00

      Well, I mean you've actually gotta live there. Um, I think it probably attracts-

   8. CWChris Williamson34:05

      How many days per year?

   9. AHAndrew Henderson34:06

      There's different criteria, but I'ma just call it half a year. Maybe let's call it a little bit more than half the year. I'm a more conservative guy. I mean, and, and I've seen some of these things people pitch, like, uh, what was one of the ones last year? The Malta Pension Plan. That one got unraveled. And they have all these different schemes that various advisors promote, like, "Oh, it's so easy, you could just," you know. I'm not a fan of the, "Oh, it's so easy," 'cause eventually that stuff comes crashing down. Let's say it's a little bit more than half the time in Puerto Rico to satisfy all the things. I do think it attracts the kind of person who's like, "Can I just get on a raft and float back to Miami?" No, don't do that. (laughs) Like, no, don't do that. Um, it's a place that is not that efficient, um...

   10. CWChris Williamson34:47

       What's the quality of life like? I've never been.

   11. AHAndrew Henderson34:48

       I, I, I don't, I, I, I've been there only once. Um, I, I think people say they tolerate it.

   12. CWChris Williamson34:56

       (laughs)

   13. AHAndrew Henderson34:57

       Um, and, (laughs) and by the way-

   14. CWChris Williamson34:59

       Like glowing-

   15. AHAndrew Henderson34:59

       By the way-

   16. CWChris Williamson35:00

       ... glowing recommendation.

   17. AHAndrew Henderson35:00

       ... people say, "Oh..." You know, it's like, people move from California to Florida in droves now, and, and they don't think anything of that. People move from New York to Texas in droves. I would argue you'd save a lot more in taxes, and maybe you'd have a closer cultural connection. Okay, a lot of people from New York are in Texas now, but you might have a closer cultural connection with someone in Ireland if you're from Boston or if you're from New York than moving to Dallas. Um, but for some reason, moving to Ireland or moving to Panama is scary, moving to Texas or even Puerto Rico is not scary 'cause it's in the US. I don't think a lot of the, the local Puerto Ricans, uh, necessarily like this, uh, the system that they have going on there. I think you have some of the same issues as if you moved to a foreign country. It's not that efficient. People tolerate it. I mean, the, if you wanna do something at the bank, just prepare to spend all day. And so, I get it. I mean, if you wanna be an American, or if you just like, if you just can't, if you already have tons of money but you plan on having tons more I get that there are certain people who wanna go there. For me, the issue was, uh, I was, I was single at the time when I expatriated. Um, I didn't think I would date an American. And so, do you know how many people I've had where their, their best tax move is to move to Puerto Rico, but they've got a Mexican girlfriend? Well, is she gonna get a green card? How are you gonna hang out with your Mexican girlfriend, right? Um, so I mean, that's where the dating piece comes in. Like, dude, I'll, I'll, I'll take the Colombians, I'll take the Russians, like the... Okay, not, not anymore, but as I'm married... But, um, that for me was the problem in Puerto Rico, is you're kind of limited to who you can, who you can be with.

   18. CWChris Williamson36:43

       What do you mean when you talk about the global citizen sandwich and the trifecta strategy?

   19. AHAndrew Henderson36:50

       So, the trifecta strategy is, um... I'm- I'm- As I get older, I'm more focused on being in, in one or two places, uh, and then just kind of briefly visiting the others for business or checking out opportunities. Um, but for a long time, I said, "I-I can't decide. I just love it all." I'm a legitimately very curious person. I'm fascinated by absolutely everything, and I would, you know, say, "Oh, I'd go to Mexico. I lo- I gotta have some Mexico in my life. I gotta have some Latin America in my life." And then I'd come to Asia. "Oh, I love Asia. This is great." And then I'd go to Europe. "Okay, I need some of this." Okay, the trifecta is you pick three home bases. You get either a residence permit or a citizenship. Uh, theoretically, maybe you could live there as a tourist in some countries, and you basically have three home bases, and you split your time between them. Now, you can modify it, but I mean, the- the pure trifecta, as I called it, was four months in one, four months in another, and four months in a third. So, it might be, you know, from December through March, I'm gonna be in Kuala Lumpur where it's warm. Then April, May, June, July, I'm gonna go somewhere in, in Europe, and then, you know, the rest of the year, I'm gonna be in Latin America. And I want to experience everything the world has to offer. There's different business lessons you learn from being in- being in different places. There's different cultures. Um, I mean, Asian culture is substantially different in some ways to what you might be used to in the UK and in the US. And so, some people, 12 months a year, they're gonna burn out. A lot of people come to Asia, they do the two-year thing. That's why they call them expats. It's not permanent. They're not immigrants, right? They don't plan on staying. I think if you spent four months a year in Asia, in the best months, you would love coming back. Um, and so that was the trifecta. And it just so happens that in the kind of countries that I tend to like, that can be very tax-friendly, and in some cases, it's just like, "Hey, you didn't spend six months in Colombia, so you don't owe us any tax." The goal was not tax avoidance. That was the side effect. And so, I'm in the tax business, right? People don't come to me to talk about how they don't like their mother or they want to dance salsa. They come because they have a problem paying too much tax. And so I prescribed it as, "I like it for the lifestyle. You might like it for the tax." The global citizen sandwich is exactly why I'm in Malaysia. Malaysia is- Kuala Lumpur, I'm not saying it's the absolute best place. It is the best value place in the- in the- in the world to live. Nicest people. It's humid, but otherwise good weather. Tons of consumer conveniences. I went to a five-star hotel where we have our Nomad Capitalist Live event, uh, last year. They have a beautiful gentleman's club, like a smoke- like a cigar lounge. Got four cocktails at happy hour, served by a guy in a white dinner jacket who knows everybody who's successful in the country, and four cocktails cost me 23 bucks. Uh, the most beautiful ambiance, you wear a smoking jacket, they come and they can get a haircut. I mean, there's nowhere better. You obviously wouldn't pay that in Singapore. But I- I- I do trust Singapore more than if I have precious metals to store or I want to put $10 million in a bank, I'd rather do it there. I do think Malaysian banks are pretty darn safe, but I'm not putting my $10 million... They just don't have as many options. They don't have as many investment options, as many currencies. It's harder to get the money out. So, I'm going to Singapore next door. That's the top layer of the bread. That's like the creme de la creme. The meaty part, the meat in the middle, is where you live, Malaysia, and then the other layer of bread is, okay, I own a home in Malaysia. The trade-off is, it's not really increasing in value. There's- there's a good amount of supply. It'll take 10 or 15 years for me to see much appreciation. I li- My investment is a lifestyle investment. And so, you know, I'm the- one of the largest investors in a fund that a friend of mine runs in Cambodia. I think Cambodian real estate has some of the highest promise for capital appreciation in the next five to 10 years of any market in Southeast Asia, and it's accessible. And so, I wouldn't live in Cambodia. I wouldn't bank, you know, $10 million in Cambodia. I don't think I need to live in Singapore. So, the nice meaty part in the middle is where you spend your actual life living, and then the layers on top are the- the extremes of the asset protection, and then the more adventurous kind of capital appreciation.

   20. CWChris Williamson41:06

       Can't you buy-

   21. AHAndrew Henderson41:07

       And you can- you- you can do that anywhere.

   22. CWChris Williamson41:09

       You can buy land in Cambodia as a non-citizen, non-resident? Is that right?

   23. AHAndrew Henderson41:16

       No, there's like four countries in Asia, Thai- Thailand was- was promising to open it up and I think they scrapped it, um, for- for high investors. Uh, Malaysia, Japan, parts of Korea, uh, I forget the other one. Uh, but Malaysia is actually the most open in Southeast Asia. You can own land. So, you can actually buy land. You can build a house. I have a friend who's doing that. Uh, in Cambodia you cannot, but you can own condo buildings. Now, uh, you know, there's a program, you know, if you, uh- if you donate money to a charity endorsed by the king, the king will give you citizenship. Then you can go out as a newly-minted Cambodian citizen and buy what you want. But, um, you can also set up a Cambodian company and- and- and you can do that. So, you know, what my friend did was he set up the Cambodian company, pulled everybody together, 'cause it's not really cost-efficient to do it, to buy one apartment. Um, but generally in Asia, you're not gonna get citizenship, and outside of like Malaysia, you're gonna buy a condominum- condominium. That's how it works. But they're very tax-friendly places. They're very laid back, very laissez-faire. People come to Kuala Lumpur, they think, "Oh, it's a Muslim country." And everyone who comes here, the most progressive people I know, they say, "Everyone told me we don't care," especially if you're not- if you're not Malay Muslim. I mean, if you're Malay Muslim, okay, they're gonna- they're gonna judge you a little bit. Even if you're Malaysian but you're not Muslim, you can wear the shortest shorts. You can wear the tiniest tops. You can do what- you can drink. You can do whatever you want. We don't judge you. That's- like, that's between you and your God. We don't judge you. So, it's this very laid back place.... um, and I, and I'm a big fan.

   24. CWChris Williamson42:52

       Talking about Muslim countries that are both Muslim and not, Dubai, being British, that is the, uh, probably the most common, uh, after somewhere like a, a season in Ibiza for the summer-

   25. AHAndrew Henderson43:04

       Yeah.

   26. CWChris Williamson43:05

       ... or, or Magaluf, or Zante, or somewhere like that. Uh, a lot of people going to Dubai. A lot of my close friends, uh, going and living out there. There was a period, uh, some of my friends have been going out for literally 10 years. And there was a period a while ago where,

7. 43:18 – 50:03

   Owning a Business in Dubai

   1. CWChris Williamson43:18

      did you have to get... You had to know an Emirati or something? And, and if you knew someone who was Emirati, you could kinda get this extra blessing. And then there was this other period for a brief while, maybe five years ago, up until five or f- four or five years ago, where you had to go and do, like, a visa run once every quarter or something, and now it's a little bit easier and it, it, it continues to be doing that. But what's the-

   2. AHAndrew Henderson43:43

      Hm. Hm.

   3. CWChris Williamson43:43

      Give me the, the thoughts on Dubai. 'Cause from a, a British person's perspective-

   4. AHAndrew Henderson43:46

      Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson43:46

      ... it's the, it's nomad capitalist encapsulated in a single country.

   6. AHAndrew Henderson43:52

      Again, I'm a bit of a contrarian, right? I mean, I, and I think I almost like Kuala Lumpur. I think it is the best value, but I almost like it in a sense because it's not Bangkok. A lot of people go to Bangkok. I just kinda like to do my own thing. Um, so we had our company in Dubai for a while, and we decided to move out. Um, the banking, I think, is quite difficult. Um, the quality of private banking is... I- it's not ready. It's just not. Uh, and I just had that experience as recently as two months ago. Um, I've gotta go and figure out, you know, what, what, what, what, where, you know, (laughs) what's happening with some money that I sent them, because the j- the quality of service in the banking system, not impressed. Um, if you wanna run a business, I think it's mu- it's really designed to, for people who want to live there. So our finance team is in Tbilisi, Georgia. Um, and every time we wanted to do something, they're like, "Well, just come into the branch." It's like the US. They're like, "Well, people live outside of the US? What, what are you talking about? Like, people live outside of Dubai? Like, we can't imagine that." Like, because people who live there, who work in banks and stuff, their dream was to live in Dubai. Wh- how, how can you not live in Dubai? That's impossible. It's not really set up for remote operations. So, um, and now the free... I mean, and now they're bringing in this 9% tax and they're applying it more aggressively to even the free zone companies than was originally thought.

   7. CWChris Williamson45:18

      Can you explain the, the 9% tax? I haven't heard of this.

   8. AHAndrew Henderson45:21

      So well, there's this global minimum tax that they brought in on big companies. So if you have, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, the world got together and said, "We can't have you moving all your profits to, you know, Bermuda. Let's apply some global tax that applies across the board." Not to businesses like yours and mine. Or I don't know, maybe you're making hundreds of millions, but not mine. Um, and so they basically said, "Okay, everybody's gotta raise their rates." So a country like Ireland, for example, said, "Okay, we're 12 and a half. If you meet the threshold, we'll bump it up to 15." But what also happened was some of these countries that wanted to kinda get along were like, "Okay, well, we'll increase our tax rates just on everybody." Um, and the UAE did that. So they said, "Okay, it's gonna be 9% if you run an onshore business, but if you're in the free zones," which is where a lot of people would set up, you know, there's different free zones in, in Dubai and all over the country, "as long as you're not working with other UAE, you know, entities, okay? And as li-" you know, you're not gonna pay. It's still gonna be zero. I said, "Okay, that's kind of like Hong Kong." If you're based in Hong Kong, you pay tax. If you're offshore, there's a way you can exempt yourself and not pay any tax. Okay, fine. Fair enough. Well, then they started creeping in more and more and more into the free zones to where now it's like most people running a business are gonna pay 9%. Even like we looked into, "Can we just keep our, our trademarks there?" No, you have to do transfer pricing. You've gotta move money into the UAE from your other companies to pay for the value of the trademarks that you're using, and then we're gonna tax that at 9%. So the UAE basically rolled out a 9% tax on domestic companies, and then it's kind of been creeping into the companies that don't have any connection to Dubai. They just said, "Hey, it's 0% tax. What a nice place to go. I can get a bank account. I can get a residence permit." I give the UAE incredible credit for making the residence process that you mentioned incredibly easy. It is one of the easiest in the world. And if you wanna personally live there, they've said for now it's gonna be 0% tax on your personal. So if you would just have, again, stock earnings or something... Well, actually stocks, if you have dividends, could be a problem, but if you just have capital gains, if you have, you know, Bitcoin, whatever, fine. But if you're gonna run a business that's based in the UAE, I, I don't think it's that ideal. But I give them incredible, uh, respect for how they've made immigration super easy. And it just proves the point. If you run your country to where you don't have a big social welfare system, you don't let people get away with crimes, why wouldn't you let anyone who sets up a company, anyone who invests some money, why wouldn't you let them come and be a resident? I mean, that's the way the US used to be. And so I see in that point, like, it's kind of like the new American dream. Anyone who wants to make something of themselves, come on in. We're not gonna make it hard. And they don't. But I think on the tax side, um, in an effort to placate, uh, the global powers, they got a little bit more aggressive than they initially thought. And it's not the government's fault that the banks are difficult, but I'm just, I'm just, I'm not impressed by the banks.

   9. CWChris Williamson48:13

      I mean, we are talking about a country that changed the weekend only a couple-

   10. AHAndrew Henderson48:18

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson48:18

       ... of years ago. And just-

   12. AHAndrew Henderson48:19

       Yep.

   13. CWChris Williamson48:19

       ... for the people that, people that don't know, the Dubai weekend used to be Friday, Saturday. So your Friday night would've been a Thursday night, and you went back to work on a Sunday morning.

   14. AHAndrew Henderson48:30

       Yep.

   15. CWChris Williamson48:30

       And (laughs) one day, one day everyone just woke up and the government said, "Hey, guess what? The weekend is Saturday and Sunday now." Um-

   16. AHAndrew Henderson48:40

       All the British, like, yeah. I- I- are you gonna come, like, "I'm working on Sunday." Like, what the hell is that? Listen, I... And I think, I mean, Saudi Arabia is kind of doing this now as well. I mean, Bahrain was always one of the more liberal ones. Um, I mean, I think the whole Gulf, with the UAE being the kinda the biggest standout-... has done an incredible job at what I would call, let's go out and figure out, basically go where you're treated best. "Hey, who's doing this the best? Okay, let's, let's just implement that. Okay, what, what do they got going on? Okay, that, that makes sense, let's do that."

   17. CWChris Williamson49:10

       Oh, but from a policy perspective. Yeah, how interesting.

   18. AHAndrew Henderson49:13

       It's, it's... Right, I mean, you, you know what the b- H- here's where I can assess whether a country is a failure. And, and I know this because I, I, we have people who work in some of these countries, and that's why it was more affordable for us to go there, "Oh, no, no, that's not how we do it. We do it this way." Well, maybe the results suck and you should change how you do it, but your pride gets in the way. I have a great respect for the UAE and these other countries. I mean, they have a pride for their country, but it's not... The, the pride doesn't get in the way of, "Let's make the right decisions."

   19. CWChris Williamson49:42

       Yeah, they-

   20. AHAndrew Henderson49:43

       And they've done an incredible job on that.

   21. CWChris Williamson49:45

       Uh, how would you say? Like, philosophically non-monogamous when it comes to their procedures.

   22. AHAndrew Henderson49:51

       Yes.

   23. CWChris Williamson49:52

       (laughs)

   24. AHAndrew Henderson49:52

       Yes, yes.

   25. CWChris Williamson49:53

       Um-

   26. AHAndrew Henderson49:54

       I, I, I, I think, yeah, I think non-monogamy, in, in the context of choosing countries and policies and things, it makes a lot of sense.

   27. CWChris Williamson50:02

       One

8. 50:03 – 57:26

   The Intense Paperwork of Travelling

   1. CWChris Williamson50:03

      of the things that I've had in my head as you've been talking through all of this today is, dear God, how much paperwork is associated with all of this? You're talking about... I mean, dude, I had to submit... And I'm aware I tried to get into a very difficult country to get into, but I had to submit a s- a three-inch thick, 700-page hard copy portfolio for my O-1.

   2. AHAndrew Henderson50:24

      Oh, wow.

   3. CWChris Williamson50:24

      And, uh, you know, to get a Social Security number, and there's no license equivalency test. America has the worst... Hey, guess what, America? You can't drive. No one can drive in America, right? No one. Everybody's a bad driver. There's no license equivalency between the UK and the US, so I need to retake-

   4. AHAndrew Henderson50:39

      Right.

   5. CWChris Williamson50:39

      ... my theory test in order to be able to get a driver's license, in order to be able to get a car. But before I did that, I had to get a Social Security number, and in order to get a Social Security number, I had to show my I-94, but your I-94 is only triggered if you've entered the country through the border within the last three months, which meant that I had to leave to go to the Bahamas, to come back, just to trigger this arbitrary number. So, my point being, I've had to deal with lots of paperwork and I essentially live in two countries, or I d- I, uh, I'm invested in some form, or a stakeholder in two different countries. And you're this, like, big, long octopus with its tentacles wrapped around many countries. W- like, how does... How would anybody get, uh, even begin to get this started without just drowning in tons of correspondence?

   6. AHAndrew Henderson51:26

      Well, I, I was at a bank not so long ago, um, in Serbia, and I think the banks are safe there, I think it's a nice kind of diversification play, but it was never a place I wanted to put a lot of money. And so when I said, "Okay, let me, let me get a new debit card just in case I need it. I'm, I'm never gonna need it, but just in case." I carry around, like, this many debit cards.

   7. CWChris Williamson51:47

      (laughs)

   8. AHAndrew Henderson51:48

      Um, and I went to pick it up, and they're like, "Oh, do you have a DINA card?" I'm like, "Yeah, I guess it expired." They, they... So they're required by law to give you this card that you can make payments in Serbian dinars. Like, nobody uses it, but they're required for you to give you one. And they're like, "Oh, we've gotta cut up your debit card, and well, you've gotta come back in a month." And I'm like, "I'm, I'm not here li- I'm here, like, once or twice a year. I'm not coming back." So you know what? Go where you're treated best. I'm just not gonna have a debit card, and I'll keep a lit- little bit less money in that account. And, um, you know, that's what it is. Uh, I'm probably gonna sell some land I own next door in Montenegro. Just the thought of, "Oh my God, I gotta build a villa." You know what? Someone's probably built a villa somewhere else, and I can just buy it if I want to. And you know what? Maybe I should just rent a villa for a while, and just, like, put the money to work. Um, so I think that you've gotta... You know, that's kind of the whole thought process behind what we're doing, is like, you don't have to go to the US because, yeah, I had some properties that I owned in the US, and it was the most laborious process. Now, the US real estate market does have more liquidity than some other markets, but where I own these properties, it wasn't that great. And I sold them, and there were just so many fees and so many things to do, and just like... I, I mean, I think that the grass was literally half an inch too long, and I got a thing in the mail like, "Violation." And they're like, they just want you to pay 100 bucks. That doesn't really exist in all the other countries. I just went through... I, I go through end of the year, I pay all the bills for seven properties, I have one of the people on my finance team help me, and it's pretty, pretty darn easy. And I have people who have helped me. It's... And in many cases, in many countries, it's more informal. Someone was your real estate agent, three years later, if you want their help with the air conditioning, they, "Hey, I'll just go over there and check it out." Um, you pay him a few bucks. So I, I, I, I found that yes, there's bureaucracy. Um, I mean, having... If you grow the business large enough, you just build an in-house team that specializes in it, we do it in-house. But, I mean, the same with the, the, with Dubai, it just became too much to manage. Uh, you know, and we just said, "You know what? We're just gonna go back where we were." Um, so it is go where you're treated best, and I think that, again, the US is an ex- that's an extreme outlier. Um, I, I saw a statistic not long ago that if you're getting a green card interview for, I forget if it's like a sibling or what kind of family member you're trying to come as through family reunification, uh, from certain countries like India, Mexico, China, you applied in 1998. That's when you filed, that's when you, that's when you did all the paperwork to get approved, you're now coming in to finalize the process in 2020... Well, it was 2023 then. Um, now, whatever you think about family reunification, I mean, we do that for people all the time. You know, someone gets a Portugal residence permit, then they add their wife through family reunification. It takes, you know, a month or two or something. Um, there's something... I mean, the US system is broken. And again, even in Ireland, just got someone a, uh, a work permit the other day so they can go and work there and they can work for their own company, and it's kind of a tax-efficient way for them to, to live in the country.... uh, it took like a month and a half. The person made a small mistake, the solicitor pointed it out. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry," said the government officer. Uh, that doesn't happen in the U... I mean, the US is an outlier.

   9. CWChris Williamson55:13

      It's very, uh, adversarial, very cantankerous.

   10. AHAndrew Henderson55:17

       It really is. I mean, I, I mean, and, and you had the best situat- situation. I mean, going to a US Embassy in, in... I've been there, in Georgia, for example, you know, and I just watched the visa interviews there.

   11. CWChris Williamson55:28

       Dude, I went to-

   12. AHAndrew Henderson55:28

       I mean, British is like-

   13. CWChris Williamson55:29

       I, I know.

   14. AHAndrew Henderson55:30

       ... it's a nice touch.

   15. CWChris Williamson55:31

       No, no, I went to Guatemala.

   16. AHAndrew Henderson55:33

       Yeah.

   17. CWChris Williamson55:34

       I went to the-

   18. AHAndrew Henderson55:35

       Yeah.

   19. CWChris Williamson55:35

       ... the embassy there because the wait time. I was 88 days into a 90-day ESTA, about to go over, and if I had, I would have been immediately banned from the country for God knows-

   20. AHAndrew Henderson55:44

       Right.

   21. CWChris Williamson55:44

       ... how many years. So I was like, "Right, well, I'll leave, go to..." Oh, God, uh, I'd had the choice between El Salvador, Belize, and Guatemala, and I was like, "Right, well, let's go to Guatemala." So I go to Guatemala, I'm able to get e- No, Berlin 2024. This is 2022. It's taken ages 'cause there was this backlog from COVID for people getting O-1 application, blah, blah, blah. London 2024. Uh, Guatemala next week. I'm like, "Hey, guess I'm going to Guatemala."

   22. AHAndrew Henderson56:08

       Right.

   23. CWChris Williamson56:08

       Um, so th- that was... I guess that was a little bit sort of nomad, nomadic.

   24. AHAndrew Henderson56:12

       I, I, I mean, you're s- you're still British. I mean, right? So I think you, you kind of stand out as the shining, you know, uh, i- it's like, "Ah, finally somebody I..." (laughs) You know, like, um...

   25. CWChris Williamson56:21

       An ex-colonist.

   26. AHAndrew Henderson56:22

       Listen, I- Yeah. No, I mean, like, yeah, I, I think if you're British or Irish and getting an O-1 is, is more straightforward. Um, but no, it's, it's... You know, I... People say, "Oh, you, you, you hate the US." I just don't think they're best at anything. I guess prisoner population-

   27. CWChris Williamson56:41

       (laughs)

   28. AHAndrew Henderson56:42

       ... uh, per capita, um, they're not e- they're not even best at obesity anymore.

   29. CWChris Williamson56:48

       (laughs)

   30. AHAndrew Henderson56:50

       So, I mean, like, I just wanna go where things are best, and, um, I, I, I want... If, if people take nothing away from this, I, I just, I never felt good in the US, again, for multiple different reasons. But like when I started traveling, you know, the TSA, they open up your stuff, they're yelling at... I mean, just like- just so many interactions with the government are unpleasant that when you go to so many other countries, it- it's... You think, "Oh, it must be the same." It's, it's not the same. It really isn't. Uh, that's... It's just not the norm.
9. 57:26 – 1:05:25

   Most Simple Places to Consider

   1. CWChris Williamson57:26

      there's someone who's listening to this, uh, maybe two people, one of them is American and one of them isn't. And they're thinking, "Andrew made a bit of sense there. I, I don't feel a massive amount of affinity, I feel like I could do with a change, uh, but I don't really know where to start. And going to somewhere to simply be a tourist, like, I need to- perhaps I need to work in some regard." Where would you... Like, you mentioned that Dubai is, is very simple. What are some of the other places that's like on the, um, the new Passport Bros starter kit? Who's... What- what's included in that?

   2. AHAndrew Henderson57:56

      Well, so, I mean, my focus... I mean, I've been an entrepreneur my entire life, and I realized, you know, I was maybe 20 years old, I had a Vonage phone. I don't know if anybody remembers Von- like a VoIP phone. And I would, I would basically, you know, cold call people for my business. I would call businesses. "Uh, hey, do you wanna buy some advertising?" And I, I re- I realized pretty early on, "Why couldn't I do this from anywhere?" And eventually, I started to do it as I was, as I was traveling. Uh, I resisted the urge to move fully, but I... There were some years I traveled more than half the year and I'd be in China and nobody would even know. I would literally call my clients. Th- You know, they wouldn't know the difference. Um, and, you know, I, I, I think that's the perspective I come from, is you have something that you can take with you. So first, I would develop that. Um, is it, you know, I'm a, I'm a cryptocurrency trader, I'm a stock investor, I have an online business-

   3. CWChris Williamson58:47

      Graphic designer.

   4. AHAndrew Henderson58:47

      ... I'm a consultant, yeah, freelancer. Whatever I can take with me. The cool thing about the US is there is more flexibility. Again, not tax advice, but there's more flexibility, generally speaking, on keeping your US bank accounts. And so... You know, whereas if you leave the UK or Canada, like, they're, they're more like, "You should probably close that." Um, I would get that in line first. Now, I think, you know, Kuala Lumpur versus like New York was like 25 cents on the dollar. I mean, I just... You know, four cocktails, 23 bucks. That's like one cocktail in Las Vegas or something. Um, you don't have to make as much, but I would get to the point where I can, I can support myself. Um, I mean, Dubai does have a lot of networking opportunities, um, depending on what you do. Um, I think... I mean, it depends on your personality. I think a place like in Ireland where they speak English, where it's very open. I would say the UK, but the UK has no way to move there. Uh, we had Nigel Farage-

   5. CWChris Williamson59:49

      How so?

   6. AHAndrew Henderson59:49

      ... at Nomad... We- Well, we had Nigel Farage at Nomad Capitalists Live a couple years ago. I told him like, "You got rid of the investor visa." The startup visa doesn't really work, even if- even when it rarely does work. It's like you have to be the next Facebook or you have to be investing in the next Facebook. Like, there's just no way for a person with wealth or a business to move to the UK generally. It's just really just not a process for that. Um, you can get a job and move to the UK, you can get married and move to the UK, but like, a guy like me cannot easily move to the UK. So to me, that's kind of a bulwark. Um, you know, I like a place like an Ireland. Somebody else might like a place like a Switzerland that has maybe more established, I don't know what you wanna call it... I mean, Dubai obviously has a lot of very new money.

   7. CWChris Williamson1:00:32

      What about Portugal?

   8. AHAndrew Henderson1:00:33

      Um, so what-

   9. CWChris Williamson1:00:33

      I saw Portugal were advertising for a while, "Come and live in Lisbon. It's on GMT. We'll give you a visa-"

   10. AHAndrew Henderson1:00:39

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson1:00:39

       "... that's simple." And so on. Is that not simple to get to?

   12. AHAndrew Henderson1:00:43

       They are, but they got rid of their- they, they got rid of the tax programs. They had a great tax incentive.

   13. CWChris Williamson1:00:47

       Mm-hmm.

   14. AHAndrew Henderson1:00:48

       So-

   15. CWChris Williamson1:00:48

       It was for crypto bros, right? They were looking to try and bring people in that were trading crypto.

   16. AHAndrew Henderson1:00:52

       Like, okay, for crypto, yeah. I, I, I've- I... Unfortunately, I've, I've lost some confidence in Portugal. Um, not a bad place to live. Um, uh, for me, you know, the places that I, I've mentioned today, you know, Malaysia and Ireland, people complain in both cases, for opposite reasons, about the weather. To me, the weather is the least important thing. If you can't handle some humidity, turn on the air conditioning. You know, in Ireland and Dublin, it doesn't rain that much. Um, so I think the use case for Portugal is like, "Oh, the weather is so nice." I, I've never entirely understood that one. Um, so some of their incentives have gone away. Uh, I mean, th- the answer is there's something for everybody. Um, I mean, I think Mexico is an interesting place. A lot of people have gone there-

   17. CWChris Williamson1:01:33

       Is that simple? Is Mexico simple to be able to spend a, a three-month, six-month, "I'm gonna go and do my graphic design from there"?

   18. AHAndrew Henderson1:01:40

       Well, r- so I'm a big fan of having a residence permit, especially now. So Mexico technically is like the UK. You get 180 days visa-free. But much like the UK, they're not doing it anymore. "Hey, when are you leaving?" "Oh, I'm just here for the six months." "Yeah, we don't accept that. Get, get the hell out." Or, "I'll give you one month, and then you need to leave." Um, if you can get a Mexican residence, which is pretty easy, I mean, everything's easy, nothing is easy, but it's, the qualifications are straightforward enough. You have a couple thousand in income every month, um, you can get a residence permit, live there all you want. Obviously, th- if you've lived there too long, there's a tax planning question. But yes, I mean, Mexico is a straightforward place. Latin America is a place where if you have income, you can get a residence permit. Asia is generally a place where you need to have wealth. Put some money in our bank, buy a property, you know, put in six figures. Latin America is the place where if you're just starting out, um, "Hey, show us $800, $1,000, $1,200, $2,000 a month in income for the last three, six months, twelve months, whatever. Here's your residence permit. You can live here all you want." So, um, I mean, I think Colombia is interesting. People live in Medellín. I'm in Bogotá. I think all of Mexico is interesting. I'm in Mexico City, in particular, for me, but there's so many cities, I mean, to pick. Portugal is interesting. They got rid of the tax incentive. Italy has a very interesting tax incentive. People like that. Um, you know, it just depends on what you want. I mean, I, I, I think we popularized the country of Georgia. Very tax-friendly, not as affordable anymore with all the Russians-

   19. CWChris Williamson1:03:10

       Where is Georgia?

   20. AHAndrew Henderson1:03:10

       ... that have come in. Uh, east of Turkey, south of Russia-

   21. CWChris Williamson1:03:13

       Okay.

   22. AHAndrew Henderson1:03:13

       ... in the Caucasus.

   23. CWChris Williamson1:03:14

       Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   24. AHAndrew Henderson1:03:15

       You know? So now, you know, Georgia, Armenia-

   25. CWChris Williamson1:03:16

       What's the cul- what's the culture like in, in Georgia?

   26. AHAndrew Henderson1:03:19

       Uh, decreasingly conservative.

   27. CWChris Williamson1:03:21

       (laughs) Coming into land?

   28. AHAndrew Henderson1:03:25

       Um, no, I mean, it's a very kind of conservative, respectful culture, laid-back. So like Armenia next door, they were always the ones who... You know, I mean, there's, there's like 40,000 Armenians in Uruguay. I went there and I saw Armenian restaurants. Georgians were always more like chill, enjoy, great food, great wine, great hospitality. If you know a Georgian, you've got like a friend for life. Um, so in that regard, it's nice. The culture is a little bit different. Um, you know, I've enjoyed it, but I also see why some people could get, could get stuck up on that. Uh, I mean, there's just so many pla- And then there's Southeast Asia. I mean, Malaysia, Thailand, um, so many pl-

   29. CWChris Williamson1:04:04

       But that's, those are a little bit more restricted to wealth and presumably a little bit more procedural.

   30. AHAndrew Henderson1:04:10

       You can get digital nomad visas. Thailand has the Thai Elite Visa. You pay a fee every five years. Um, so there are more affordable ways to do it if your goal is not permanence. You can also come to Malaysia for 90 days on a tourist visa, and I would guess if you left for a couple weeks and came back, uh, they'd give you another 90 days if you're a Westerner. Um, you know, if you're not a Westerner, it's 30 days, and that becomes harder to navigate. But if you can make $2,000 a month, I think it is, you can get a digi- digital nomad visa. That may not last forever. But the question is, you know, what's your level of commitment to this? For me, when I left the US, I said... I lied to myself, "I'm gonna do this for a year." I knew I wasn't coming back. It was just, "Hey, keep the house. Don't sell the house." Um, but I always knew it was, it wa- it was done. I think for some people, there's nothing wrong with saying, "I'm gonna have a five-year adventure. I'm gonna learn how the world works. I'm gonna pick up some new ideas. I'm gonna learn, hey, they do it over here," same as we talked about in the UAE, "Hey, here's how they do this over here. If I added that, I bet that would make my business better. I'm gonna save some taxes for five years. I'm gonna bring that money back and then just, you know, enjoy my life." I don't think you have to do that. I mean, I've talked about, you know, having kids. I could have kids and live in multiple places. You can hire a tutor. Um, there's any number of things

10. 1:05:25 – 1:10:58

    Dealing With Education for Children

    1. AHAndrew Henderson1:05:25

       you can do. Um-

    2. CWChris Williamson1:05:25

       Yeah, well, that's, that's a question. Let's say that somebody does have kids.

    3. AHAndrew Henderson1:05:28

       Yeah.

    4. CWChris Williamson1:05:28

       What's, what's a, a solution that you look at, uh, for your clients? Presumably a tutor that you would need to pay that would have to fly and be prepared to move with you?

    5. AHAndrew Henderson1:05:37

       Well, I mean, some people just move to one place. They move and they put their kids in international school. We've got a, a, a private client right now. He's like, "I wanna move to Thailand, and, uh, I'm buying in the same complex as the school." And, um, I mean, that, there's something to be said for that. Um, you could... You know, there's international schools a lot of places. You could homeschool in a lot of places. I mean, some of the Northern European countries are pretty nasty on that, but most of the rest of the world is not. Um, but if you don't wanna homeschool yourself... And so I kn- I know a family. We got a guy who's speaking at, at our, uh, live event coming up, uh, this year named Joshua Sheets, and he has a family of four, and they homeschool them, and they travel around, and they do it themselves. I also met a very successful guy in the entertainment business who is doing kind of my trifecta. He's like, "I heard you say 'trifecta,'" and it's like, "That's kind of what I'm doing." And he has the homes around the world, and, uh, they hired a tutor that travels with them. So there's different ways to do it. So, but my, my point is I don't think that, like, this has to be a single person's game or a couple's game. I think you can keep doing it. If you decide to do it for five years and you get the experience and to save the money, um, maybe you get an extra passport in the process if you settle down in one place, I think that's fine too. Uh, it's always good to have more options, have more knowledge. But the idea that you have to give it up because now it's time to settle down, um, I mean, I, I mean-I, I talked to my friend. I said, "Bring your son." Your son's, like, 17? "Come over and visit me in Asia. Bring him for two weeks. Take him out of school. He'll learn more hanging around in Asia for two weeks than whatever they're teaching in the Chicago school system," okay? I mean, believe me. So, uh, you know, we have this bias that whatever happens in our country somehow works. Now, we complain about our country. "Biden has sold us down the river. Trump is turning us into a fascist hellhole," whatever, right? We complain about it, but somehow it's still the best in the world. And that's not just Americans. Everyone says... A lot of people say that. And it's like, well, wait a second. Again, what's best about it? Is your education system the best? I... Who was it the other day? It wasn't Guatemala, but it was something similar. It's now outpacing the US in, like, math literacy.

    6. CWChris Williamson1:07:52

       Literacy or some shit.

    7. AHAndrew Henderson1:07:54

       Like, not, not, not Korea or something you've heard of, but like, you know, it's like El Salvador or something. Like, they're, they're better now. And, and, and so like, you, you can't have kids?

    8. CWChris Williamson1:08:04

       Well, I think, you know, I have this... I have a, a non-zero, uh, cohort of friends who are around about my age, mid-30s, and they're thinking, "Yeah, I'm gonna, you know. Kids, kids are probably gonna come along at some point. Maybe they've got a partner or maybe they're looking or maybe they're engaged or married or whatever," and they're staring down the barrel of the US education system with trepidation and they're thinking like, "I don't know. If I put a child in, I don't know what's gonna come out the other side." And, you know, look at how many different people are trying to innovate their way away from this. It's Waldorf schools or it's, uh, like, um, there's one here, uh, that's run... Apogee Park that's run by Tim Kennedy. And it's like all of this stuff sounds great, but I, I... Like, all of these things are largely unproven. Now, that may be better than something that's proven to also be completely crazy or useless. But like, do I, do I want my kid to learn how to whittle a flute out of a fucking stick? Like, am I gonna teach him how to hoe, hoe the ground? Like, so the US, you're totally correct. Like, we have these things. Education

    9. NANarrator1:09:06

       I, I-

    10. CWChris Williamson1:09:06

        ... doesn't need to worry.

    11. AHAndrew Henderson1:09:06

        I had a friend. I had a friend who moved to Dubai and he had a salary, like a million dollar salary, so he was screwed as an American 'cause if you just have a salary, you just get a small exemption and you pay on the rest. But he at least was still paying less than when he lived in New York City. And he told me, "When I had three kids, I had to earn $400,000 pre-tax to send them to school." So imagine for 13 years, you put $400,000 into some fund for those kids and you had them live in Dubai. They'd learn another language, they'd learn international, they would do, you know, something else. You're telling me the extra money and not being in New York and being somewhere international wouldn't be far better for them? Here's what else I think about it. One of the concerns that some of our clients have and some of my old friends in the US have is not just the low quality of education in the US, but, oh, they're teaching, you know, there's this whole social conversation. They're teaching woke, they're teaching this, they're teaching that. And people sometimes get upset with me that I'm not so angry about this, and I say, "I'm not angry about it because I don't even know what it is really, honestly." People aren't talking about that stuff where I live, and I don't have to be a part of it. I think that what makes people angry is powerlessness. And so we convince ourselves to stay in the bubble based on where we're born because that's the best and that's what we're told and we're fed the propaganda, but then we gain this sense of powerlessness because we don't like the way things are being done, and we get angry about it and we become miserable because we don't think there's another option. I have plenty of options 'cause I've decided I have options. And so therefore, I don't just sit around like... I don't have to bother myse- Like, if I don't wanna do something or if I don't want my kids to learn something, whatever that may be, that's, we're not gonna do it. There's a s- there's a solution to that. I don't have to f- feel powerless and carry this anger around with me. And I certainly don't have to think that I have to base my entire life on one politician getting elected and they're gonna solve all my problems.

Episode duration: 1:38:19