Latest / Merryn Talks Money / Which Golden Visas Are the Shiniest of All?

Transcript

Which Golden Visas Are the Shiniest of All? · Merryn Talks Money

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Meron Talks Your Money, the personal finance edition
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: of Merin Talks Money and these bonus podcasts we talk
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: about the best strategies for making the most of your money.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: I'm Meren sumst Web Bloomberg UK Wealth Editor at Large,
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: and this week we are discussing citizenship by investment. Well
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: more than that, we're discussing how you get out of
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: the UK, out of the US, out of which have
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: a country you're living in where you don't want to
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: pay the taxes, you don't want to put up with
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: the weather, whatever it is. How you get out of
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: those countries into a country in which you would prefer
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: to live. Now, some countries allow experts to obtain permanent
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: residency if they buy a property or if they invest
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: in the economy in some way. How is that a
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: good idea? What countries have the best programs? Now? Every
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: year Henley and Partners release a comprehensive benchmarking of the
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: world's most important residence programs. And with me to have
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: a look at that list and other things, is Dominic Follock,
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Group Head of Private Clients at Henley and Partners. Welcome, dominic.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: Thank you very much.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Right, let's start I think I might have given some
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: hints of this in my own production, but let's start
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: by talking about why it would be that someone would
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: like to leave the country in which they hold citizenship originally.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: What are the drivers here?
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: It's a very good question. I would say the majority
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: of the families that we work with are not necessarily
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: looking to relocate, and so usually when we sit down
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: to have a discussion around what's known as investment migration, right,
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: so we're talking about the industry where you can acquire
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: either residents by investment this is Golden Visa's Green cord
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: in the US, or permanent residents in other countries, or
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: we're talking citizenship by investment, which is of course giving
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: you the right to a passport of that kind of
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: as well. And it there's a lot of reasons why
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: people want to explore these things. In the UK, you know,
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: probably a bit more relevant last year, as I always said,
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: it's not about relocation in tax and the UK last
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: year it was all about relocation in tax. So those
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: are the two biggest drivers, at least for our clients
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: in the UK last year.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: So if I hang on saying it's not about relocation,
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: What is it about If you don't want to relocate
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: to another country, why do you want a residence right
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: to another country? Why do you want a passport for
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: another country if you don't want to live there?
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: Very good question. So the overriding reason is optionality. So,
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: if you're wealthy, you fully understand the idea of diversification. Right. So, no,
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: you know, individual that is high net worth or above
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: has all their eggs in one basket. You're invested in
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: real estate, bonds, equity, all sorts of alternatives like crypto
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: and wine and whiskey funds, and so therefore, it makes
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: no sense that if you're diversified in terms of your assets,
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: that you're limiting yourself to one single jurisdiction, one single government,
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: and whatever challenges might be in that jurisdiction. So this
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: idea of diversifying your domiciles, having the ability to spend
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: three to four months in three to four different countries,
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: depending on the weather, depending on potentially tax or depending
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: on whatever geopolitical challenges might be at play. That's the
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: ultimate flexibility for the type of clients that we work with.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Okay, so you bo't have plants who have residency and
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: more than two countries.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: Correct, correct, So the idea of a portfolio is the
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: large trend that we see. So our biggest market last
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: year and probably been growing significantly over the last two
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: years is Americans. And these are not Americans leaving the
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: US or renouncing their American citizenship. It's more a case
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: of them realizing that it makes sense to have Plan
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: B and probably Plan C and Plan D because who
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: knows what's going to happen, what the next government's going
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: to do. Of course, we saw an interesting election results
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: at the end of last year in the US, and
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: that resulted in a lot of people realizing that you
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: should have an alternative option. It's like an insurance policy.
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: And as JFK said, you don't fix the roof while
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: it's raining, right, you fix the roof while it's shining,
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: And so why risk not having these things in place
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: when you need it?
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: Okay, interesting if you're an American and you do not
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: renounce your US citizenship with citizenship, which most very well
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: off people wouldn't want to do anyway, because there are
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: big exit penalties, right, correct, So you have to have
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: to pay your tax forward on departure, so you hang
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: onto your passport. But that means that in the main
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: Americans are not getting other residencies and other citizenships for
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: tax reasons because they would continue to be liable for
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: US tax correct correct.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: So for them what happened in the US, it was
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: actually COVID that sort of kickstarted things because in the
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: initial lockdowns, Europe said, if you're an American citizen, you
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: cannot enter Europe. And so if I'm worth a hundred
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: million dollars with a private jets and homes in Europe,
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: I don't like the fact that I can't travel right.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: So but if I had a citizenship from Saint Kitts
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: and Nevus, or I had a Portugal Golden visa, or
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: I had citizenship from Malta, I could get on my
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: private jet and fly to Europe. So it was the
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: initial lockdowns in COVID that I think a lot of
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: wealthy American families realize they were a bit more exposed
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: than potentially they thought. And that's where it started. And now,
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: of course it's becoming more and more mainstream there. So
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: the typical American client, we have a lot of them,
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: will get citizenship in the Caribbean. Europe is very much
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: part of the portfolio. So if they if they have
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: the financial capacity, then Austria and Malta for EU citizenship,
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: which gives them settlement rights across the whole of Europe,
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: something that Brits lost after Brexit. All the golden visas
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: in Spain, Greece, Portugal, Italy very attractive. We have a
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: lot that then throw in something like a golden visa
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: in Dubai and the ultimate billionaire Boltole. Part of that
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: portfolio is to get permanent residents down in New Zealand,
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: which is is far away from all the chaos in
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: the world, and so that's what we see some families
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: putting into place.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Will you just go back a tiny bit and define
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: golden visa for us?
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: So golden visa is usually residents by investment. So you know,
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: there's lots of different terms thrown around, but the overall
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: industry considers it consists of two areas, citizenship by investment.
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: There's only about twelve or thirteen countries where you can invest,
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: pass the necessary due diligence checks and directly become a
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: citizen and have the right to get a pass for
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: then you have thirty or forty sort of legal, transparent,
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: attractive successful residents by investment programs. And part of that
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: you have golden visas, where the premise is again you
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: invest and in return you get the right to reside
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: in that country. But the beauty of a golden visas
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: the physical presence requirements are usually little to none. So
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: you can get a golden visa in Greece or it's
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: and there's no physical presence required in order to maintain
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: your residence there. In Portugal, you need to effectively spend
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: just a week a year to keep your golden visa.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: If you have a Dubai golden visa, you get it
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: for ten years. There's no physical presence required at all.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: So that's why it's a golden visa. It's an investment
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: linked residence permit, but with little to no physical presence required.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: Okay, So basically all you're doing is you're paying up
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: front for the right to go to that country if
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: you feel like it or something goes wrong in your.
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: Own country exactly, and of course it's often every family
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: is unique, right, so it might be to get the
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: kids there to study, right, So education, educating your kids
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: in some of these countries, it's often much better idea
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: to do it under a Golden visa or an investor
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: visa rather than a student visa, because the US is
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: a classic example. So the US of course has a
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: high demand for it for the education, the schools and
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: the universities in the US, and so a lot of
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: the families we work with, particularly in Asia, they send
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: their kids there on a student visa that qualify and
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: then what right they either have to try and get
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: an H one B visa or some type of a
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: work permit, which is not so easy anymore. But if
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: they had sent them on what the US has the
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: EB five investor visa, So if you invest eight hundred
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: thousand dollars, you get a conditional green card your child
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: can go and study, and then they qualify with not
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: only a degree, but also a green card, permanent residence
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: or maybe even citizenship if they've spent enough time.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: Wow, it's amazing what money can buy you. Right, let's
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: look at the best places for this. So I want
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: to move on to younger people in a minute. But
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: let's say you brarely can afford to pay to buy
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: this kind of residency, this safety, etc. What comes top
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: of the list.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: So from a purely residence perspective, the way that we
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: do the ranking is for all the countries that have
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: some form of investment migration in place, we analyze them
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: based on a number of factors. Reputation of the country,
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: the quality of the life, processing time of is very
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: interesting to those who apply the compliance requirements investment requirements,
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: whether it's attractive or not from a tax perspective, So
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: that's how we do the ranking. Based on the current ranking,
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: we have Greece at number one, So Greece has a
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: very attractive Golden Visa program. You know, it takes a
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: lot of boxes in terms of quality of life. The
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: investment starts at just two hundred and fifty thousand euros.
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: Greece is also interesting from a tax perspective. They have
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: a lump sum tax regime similar to what Switzerland and
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: Italy has. So this year Greece sits at number one.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: When you say lump some taxation policy, what do you mean.
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: So Greece has a policy like Italy does where you
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: effectively agree to pay a single lump sum of tax
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: every year. So in Greece it's one hundred thousand euros
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: in Italy it's two hundred thousand euros and if you
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: pay that lump sum, you can be a tax resident
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: and they won't tax you on your worldwide income.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: So if you're a rich person living in the UK,
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: you can go to Greece, get one of these residencies,
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: become tax resident Angry and only pay one hundred thousand
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: euros at tax every year.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: Correct, So it is it is interesting for those that
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: are paying, you know, in the higher tax brackets for
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: how long a lot of them It depends on the country.
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: So some of them, you know, provide these types of
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: benefits only for you know, ten to fifteen years, Like
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: the non domin in the UK was fifteen years, and
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: if you look at the foreign incomes and game regime
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: that the UK is introduced now you know, four years,
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: it's not particularly attractive to wealthy individuals that are looking
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: to really you know, set down their roots and make
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: a life in a country. Other countries, you know, offer
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: much longer term such tax benefits, Portugal being incredibly popular
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: over the years they've had their non habitual residence that
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: was only available for the first ten years. But people
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: are more and more mobile, right, So if I'm going
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: to sit and be tax efficients in Portugal for ten years,
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: then I can move on to Dubai maybe or maybe
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: Italy in the future. But taxes, of course an important one.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if you know you've got a high earning period
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: ahead of you, if you know you've got four or
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: five years or even ten years when you're going to
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: be in a very high earning stage of life and
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: then that's going to end, it makes sense to move
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: to someone that's not going to overly tax you on that, right,
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: So that's one reason to do it.
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: Especially if you have some sort of liquidity or cash
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: out of the business. Then of course the planning around
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: this becomes incredibly important.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: So Greece was number one. What comes after Greece.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: Greece is followed by Switzerland and Italy. I guess we've
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: already touched on both of those. Also very interesting from
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: a tax perspective, Portugal, which was at the top of
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: the list for a long time and is sitting joined
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: third place next to Italy, as well as the UK.
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: The UK. You know, the UK had an incredibly interesting
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: investi visa, the Tier one investor visa, which was sort
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: of two five or ten million pounds but of course
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: that was terminated a couple of years ago. I think
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: the UK is probably missing an opportunity now by not
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: having something to compete in an industry which becomes more
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: and more competitive. And then in fourth place, we've got
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: a tie with Australia. Australia also has curtailed their investor
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: visas to a certain extent, but if you're a high
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: performing global talent industry accoladed great CV, you can actually
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: get permanent residents in Australia based purely on your experience
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: and your credentials. And Canada also tied forth with Australia.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: In Spain, Canada has a very interesting startup visa, So
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: if you have an innovative idea or you have the
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: right profile, you can set up a startup, work with
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: some of the incubators in Canada and that gives you
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: a path to permanent residents. Spain has had a very
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: successful Golden visa, although that's actually going to close now
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: in April, so the Spain Golden Visa will also cease
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: its operations in April. And then in fifth place you've
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: got the UAE, which of course has an incredibly successful
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: Golden visa regime not only for investors. If you're willing
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: to invest two million durhams so about five hundred and
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: fifty thousand US into real estate, you can also do
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: a fixed deposit with a bank. Or again if you're talented,
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: if you're a senior executive and you earn over thirty
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: thousand durhams a month, you can also get a ten
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: year Golden visa. So the UAE really is very much
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: courting not only investors, but skills and talents globally. And
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: that's why it's also seen, you know, the highest inflow
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: of millionaires. It's been at the top of the list
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: the last three years in terms of net inflow of
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: high networth individuals.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: Who are the people who are looking for these programs
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: the most You've mentioned Americans. Clearly the British are very
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: much on the move at the moment that the very
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: rich are on the move to try and avoid taxation,
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: and the young are on the move because they're finding
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: it difficult to get high paying jobs because housing is
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: so expensive, etc. On this right number the other day
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: saying are surveying that thirty percent of eighteen to twenty
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: four year olds in the UK would like to leave
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: the UK.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so if you look at it based on a
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: nationality wise, I can tell you you know, we've got
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: sixty officers around the world, so we've got a pretty
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: good finger on the pulse of who's doing what. Last year,
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: our top five was number one Americans. As I mentioned,
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: they were about twenty three percent of all our business
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: last year, so a really high percentage of Americans, not
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: necessarily as I said, on the move, but certainly looking
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: at getting alternative second citizenship and residents. That was followed
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: by you know, probably some of the more expected markets India, Philippines,
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: Turkya and number five was the UK for US last year,
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: both non doms you know, looking to move on to
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: the next step, but also a lot of Brits themselves
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: that started with Brexit, where you know, the settlement rights
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: in Europe were no longer there and so those not
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: even ultra high networth but mass affluent Brits who you
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: know had retirement plans in places like Portugal and Spain
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: and Greece are very interested in the golden visas there.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: Now, okay, and let's look at the young then where
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: are they going? I mean, I think I listen as
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: a board of hearing about my three days in Dubai.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: But I was fascinated to see how many young Brits
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: they were there as something like two hundred thousand British
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: people in Dubai now and an awful lot of those
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: people are very young. And then if you flick through
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: the papers, you'll see almost every week you'll see a
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: story of where the young are going. Why thirty somethings
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: like me and moving down under. I'm moving to Malta,
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: you know, etcetera, etcetera. There's loads of it. There are
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: young workers flee UK to gain tax breaks in the Netherlands.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: You know, there's headline after headline after headline. Where is
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: the easiest my best place for the young to go
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: if they want to get out of the UK, build
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: their CV, get some work, live a better lifestyle.
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think you know, Dubai. The UAE, I mean,
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: the UAE is not just to buy, right, I would
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: Aaby Russell Kaimer really interesting jurisdictions within the UAE. But
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: clearly a lot of them are coming into the Middle East,
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: depending on what sort of industry they're in, you know,
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: is amazing sort of construction roles and that type of thing.
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: In places like Saudi we do still see a lot
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: of these sort of nomads, you know, freelancers that are
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: very much working on a laptop. Places like Malaysia and
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: Thailand from a cost of living perspective also interesting for
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: tax reasons are very common. And in Europe I guess
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: you know the same ones like Spain and Greece and Malta.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: In these places they also have very attractive nomad visas,
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: digital nomad visas. You don't have to be high net
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: worth and you know, investing to get a golden visa.
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: In some of these places, we see quite a bit
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: of interest into some of the si of Central American
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: countries like Panama, Costa Rica. We see quite a lot
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: going from the US into Central and South America. I
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: would say that's probably the main ones. But it's it's about,
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: you know, places like to buy. Of course, there's lots
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: of wealthy coming there, but there's a lot of teaching jobs.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of real estate agents, you know, and
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: they're for sure the Brits are are piling in it
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: at numbers like they've never seen before.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: Now, if you could choose any of the countries that
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: you recommend to your clients. Say you were one of
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: your clients, and here's this huge menu of amazing places
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: you could live. Which would you choose based not just
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: on the environment, but also on the physical environment, on
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: the taxed environment, and the political environment. What would be
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: your country?
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: I would certainly go with Malta. It gives me, it
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: gives me, and it gives you know, anyone interested, the
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: ultimate flexibility because of course it's an island state. It's
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: a great travel document. So I'm a South African, so
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: you know, my Green Mumber doesn't is not very useful
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: to me as a travel document. I need a visa
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: to most places I go. So with the multi spo sport,
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: I can travel visa free pretty much anywhere in the world.
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: And the way I travel, that's quite useful. It's the
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: settlement rights. It gives me twenty seven EU member states
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: that I can base myself in. You know, certain people,
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: of course have a view on Europe currently as well,
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: so I wouldn't say it's the be all and end all,
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: but at least it gives me too many seven possible jurisdictions.
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: I can live, my kids can go and study, I
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: can work and of course, within that, there's probably three
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: or four that are also very interesting from a tax
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: perspective if I actually physically go and become tax residents.
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: So Malta is always sort of the top of it.
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: I explained, it is the top shelf option, but of
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: course it depends whether you have the financial ability to
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: participate or not.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was letting, I was letting you have unlimited
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: funds that when I offered you the choice of the world,
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: we should say that one of the reasons why that
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: Malta program is so wonderful is because your firm designed it.
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: Right, it is, but that is why it's so wonderful, right.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so you knew exactly what you wanted when you
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: designed it. Anything we've messed any visas, We haven't talked
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: about any countries that either the old or the young
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: or family should be looking.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: At another sort of maybe we haven't mentioned it been.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: One of the latest citizenship by investment programs to launch
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: is actually an incredibly interesting one in Naaruru, which is
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: one of these islands in the South Pacific, and they've
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: actually created a climate resilience fund so you can actually
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: donate to climate resilience efforts that effectively will save the
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: island and in return you get citizenship of this island.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: So it's a really sort of innovative way to you know,
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: address climate change challenges instead of just debating it at
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: COP twenty nine. You know, some of these islands are
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: actually taking their destiny into their own hands.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: But what a citizenship of NRI give you?
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: It's visa free access to the UK, to Ireland, to
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: the UAE. So again places that me, as a South African,
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: I need to get in a queue and apply for
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: a visa. So here I can do something good for
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: the environment in a country and in return get a
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: citizenship and passport. That's quite useful for me as an
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: international business person.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: Interesting, and what does it cost?
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: It's about one hundred and thirty five thousand dollars is
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: the cost to is the contribution to the fund that
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: incrementally increases if I want to include my wife and
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: my children. But it's around one hundred and thirty to
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: one hundred and seventy thousand dollars all in.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: Quite interesting, isn't it, Because that that doesn't seem that
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: much to get visa free access to say the UK,
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: I learned etc.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: Exactly exactly, And of course if you are worth you know,
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: fifty million dollars, then it's an absolute deal and loves
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: the same. It's the same even if you look at
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: it at a country like Malta, right, Malta, of course,
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: because it's EU. The capital art lay gets up to
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: about a million euros. But again, you know, if you,
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: if you, depending on who you're speaking to, if I'm
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: worth a hundred million dollars, what's a better legacy for
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: me to leave to my children? Is it another million
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: euro in the bank, another million euro in real estates,
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: or actually European citizenship which gives them unfitted access to
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: Europe that gets passed down to all future generations. I
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: think that's a significantly more interesting investment of my money
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: than you know, another apartment in London.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, Okay, I think our listeners might have thoughts
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: on this. Send emails and thoughts on all these things
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: to the usual address, which i'll read out in a
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: man Thank you everybody, Dominic, thank you so much for joining.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: Our sales are absolutely fascinating. And now I'm worried I
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: haven't got enough passports. We can help you with it,
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: of course you can, but let's talk later. Thanks for
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: listening to this week's MEREN Talk to Your Money. If
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: you like our show, rate review, and subscribe wherever you
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: listen to podcasts. Also, be sure to follow me and
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: John on x or Twitter at meren sw and John
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: Underscore Stepic. This episode was produced by some Asadi Production
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: Sport by Moses and Questions and comments on this show
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: and all our shows always welcome. Our show email is
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: merin Money at Bloomberg dot net