Latest / IMI Podcasts / This Week in IMI - Oct 1, 2023: Portugal Gets New Golden Visa as Dutch End Theirs, Thailand to Tax Foreign Earnings ++
Transcript
- 0:05SPEAKER_00: You're listening to This Week in Investment Migration.
- 0:09SPEAKER_00: Last night, Portuguese President Marcelo Rabelo de Sousa confirmed that he had enacted the controversial More Housing Bill, which, among many other measures, contains the new rules for Portugal's golden visa.
- 0:23SPEAKER_00: Real estate investment is now off the table, and market observers expect investment funds to become the leading qualification route going forward.
- 0:33SPEAKER_00: The Dutch residence by investment program is drawing to a close after having approved just ten applications since opening.
- 0:41SPEAKER_00: The government cited lack of economic impact and EU concerns about golden visas as motives for its decision.
- 0:49SPEAKER_00: The program's low application volume is no mystery to investment migration practitioners.
- 0:56SPEAKER_00: The Dutch Golden Visa's price tag was 1.25 million euros, more than three times the price of competing programs in southern Europe, which offer practically the same benefits.
- 1:09SPEAKER_00: Tax residents in Thailand will no longer be able to remit foreign earnings to the kingdom tax-free.
- 1:15SPEAKER_00: Previously, those living in Thailand but earning abroad were able to bring funds to Thailand without paying tax, as long as they did not bring the funds in during the tax year in which they were earned.
- 1:28SPEAKER_00: Starting on January 1st, however, they will have to pay tax on income remitted to Thailand, regardless of when it was earned.
- 1:36SPEAKER_00: Experts have expressed concerns about how the new rules will be implemented in practice.
- 1:42SPEAKER_00: In its data release on the third fiscal quarter of this year, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service revealed EB5 application volume had reached a three and a half year high last quarter.
- 1:56SPEAKER_00: So far in 2023, EB5 investors have injected at least$1.4 billion into the U.S.
- 2:03SPEAKER_00: economy.
- 2:04SPEAKER_00: A stubbornly persistent backlog of unprocessed applications remains a problem, acknowledges the article's author, Varvara Latintseva.
- 2:15SPEAKER_00: In what will be interpreted as a bid for Turkey's share of the CBI market, the Egyptian government has opened the country's entire property market up to citizenship by investment.
- 2:27SPEAKER_00: At a minimum investment of$300,000 compared to Turkey's$400,000, the program is now poised to become a serious market contender.
- 2:37SPEAKER_00: The country's real estate landscape, writes Hani Mostafa Moawad, is set to witness a paradigm shift as nearly every real estate developer in the country gears up to recalibrate their marketing strategies to include the promotion of citizenship.
- 2:53SPEAKER_00: Since February, when Hong Kong's financial secretary first aired plans to relaunch the city-state's capital investment entrant scheme, which has been closed since 2015, stakeholders have awaited the publication of the new program's terms and pricing.
- 3:09SPEAKER_00: Hanama provides a statistical overview of the previous program and divulges what insiders in Hong Kong expect the price to be, as well as when we can expect a program launch this year.
- 3:22SPEAKER_00: Following last month's anti-money laundering raids and subsequent arrest of ten Chinese nationals, many of whom held passports from citizenship by investment jurisdictions like Vanuatu, Turkey, Cambodia, Cyprus, and Dominica, Skittish local banks indicate they will keep a closer eye on clients holding second passports from CBI jurisdictions.
- 3:45SPEAKER_00: At least one bank said it would close the accounts of Chinese nationals with passports from the mentioned CBI countries.
- 3:53SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.