the more successful you are the more you have to protect your assets and today I'm going to walk you through three different tiers of asset protection that most asset protection experts will never tell you [Music] about and you're not going to hear this from most people because most asset protection is domestic most folks are focused on keeping their eggs in one basket and that one basket is the country they live in and so where a lot of people who talk about asset protection trusts let's just say the United States might steer you towards Wyoming Nomad capitalist would steer you towards the Cook Islands for example you can go to Nomad capital.com apply learn how we help 789 figure entrepreneur and investor clients but let's talk about the three different types of asset protection the first type of asset protection is simply having an offshore asset in your own name the second level is having some kind of company structure and the third level is having some kind of company trust where you're putting the asset out of your control in into that trust we're going to talk about this using the sort of EKG metal that I talked in my book which you can get on Amazon uh if you get this right uh not only can you if you're willing to move reduce your corporate tax on your business to zero or near zero reduce your personal income tax to a predictable sum be able to move your money anywhere at any time using what I call tunnels not be restricted by Capital controls or dumb new laws no matter who's in power have assets protected by people who want to take them from you again that's what we help people do we like to do it legally we like to do it ethically we are the goody to shes of the offshore business but let's go through those three different tiers of offshore asset protection because I think people often Overlook like the more entry level tier which is just simply having offshore Assets in your own name you can go and open a bank account in another country with as little as $1 in a place like Georgia or Ecuador and the banking in Georgia is going to be a lot more robust than most the other places that will take your $1 and you can go up to a couple hundred, in a place like Singapore and up to high six figures or seven figures and above in a place like Switzerland there are dozens of countries that offer this they each have their different pros and cons but what they all have is that money is no longer in the country and so I'll give you an example I told the story years ago when I lived in the United States I had a business and I moved to California for a business opportunity for 6 months and then I moved back where I was from I filed a tax return in both States for that year because all right they got me I was in California long enough I had to file and I had to pay and pay I did I sent them a check they cashed the check then a while later I woke up one morning and said why does my business bank account have less money than I remember well what happened was it's a pretty small amount of money for for me now but the California Franchise Tax were the most aggressive tax uh Authority on Earth I would say decided to levy my bank account why cuz I hadn't paid my taxes except I had paid them I literally had the cancel check they were paid in full the exact same amount on the tax return called the account yeah tax return is accurate if anything you probably paid too much oh thanks uh and uh had to ring up the uh the Franchise Tax Board had to submit to all their abuse and if you don't answer this question we're going to hang up on you just to get them on the phone to talk about the mistake they made and it turns out by the time you went through all that rig roll and you sat on hold for God knows how many hours and you dealt with their abuse uh yeah you know what you're right we did cash your check I guess we'll have to refund you you get an apology no that's not the point the point is my money in its entirety was sitting there that anybody can make a fat fingered mistake uh anybody could make a malicious air anyone could do anything your money is sitting right there all it takes is one keystroke I'm not talking about not paying your taxes I've always when I lived in the United States I paid my taxes I've always stayed in tax compliance since even when I owe nothing and now I pay a little something and I make sure everything is done down to the letter that's what we do here at Nomad Capal do you want to play it straight as uh my father would say but do you want to play it to where when you play it straight they come and just grab more of your money and to me there's so many other situations where this could happen I think asset protection has to happen in conjunction with citizenship because if your country passes a law that says hey we're taking your retirement account and doing XYZ with it well I guess that's the law and maybe uh being a citizen of some other country and potentially only a citizen of some other country at some point would protect you from that law so asset protection in a vacuum isn't all that you need but if your money is sitting in some other country you can still you can pay your taxes from that country and I'm not saying to totally move all the money you have out of your country but what I am saying is have some money somewhere else that whatever bad could happen whatever Black Swan event or whatever predictable bad thing could happen you have money somewhere else that you can pay for that if you get in trouble you can pay for a lawyer if someone comes and takes your money with a fat figer mistake you can still pay your bills you can still pay your payroll nothing wrong with that if you're an American uh you do to report your foreign bank accounts uh and I suggest you do that we have uh tax professionals here that help our clients do that but having an offshore account in your own name is the first way to protect your assets there could be a bank account there could be a brokerage account you could own stocks overseas uh heck you could even own US Stocks or whatever your country's stocks are in a foreign brokerage account account the big exchanges you can trade those anywhere another way to do this would be to Simply own property in your own name ey on a number of homes and P at a tears around the world I didn't set it up for this reason but there is a benefit that hey no matter what happens in some other country I've got Assets in other countries and if some country decides to go crazy and it gets to the point where they're just taking people's houses uh well I've got I've got other houses to go to as a result I don't have to be as emotional about any given place and I don't have to be as anxious about what could possibly happen under certain administrations sure I'd like everything to work out and generally it has worked out for me no one's taken any of my homes yet no one's taken any of my bank accounts yet but you always want to be protected and so you can own property in your own name and that's just you know you have an asset in another country bank account brokerage account property whatever it may be it's there it's a little harder to get to and sometimes all that matters is having a little deterrent so you don't always need a complicated structure for people who are just starting out those are things you can do with really any amount of money uh and the Assets in your own name now the second thing that you might uh look at is some kind of holding company structure this could be not only for asset protection purposes but for estate tax purposes so in my case you know I don't want to die and and owe uh certain taxes as an individual in countries I don't even live in on investments that I've made so I can have a holding company that holding company is not me I contribute my assets to the holding company that could be again it could be bank accounts now not every Bank bank account is going to open up for a holding company if you set up a holding company in a very tax neutral easy to to work with jurisdiction like let's say the British Virgin Islands you're not going to get most Georgian probably any Georgian Banks or Ecuadorian Banks to open for you you're working with a different type of Banks and they're going to generally want more money uh we have some you know5 $10,000 is probably the minimum to get something decent you know $50 $100,000 and up and so by doing that uh you now have separation between you you and the Assets in the holding company it is not your asset now you are the beneficial owner of that company you're the owner of the holding company so it does protect you in some ways uh you need to set it up properly you need to make sure you contribute the assets properly again there may be reporting requirements on this you know if if you're an American for example if you live in certain other countries you have to report that to your home country in some cases and you should do that it also does not you know eliminate taxes if you stay living in your country but it basically puts everything under one net so for example I have certain assets that if I pass away I don't want them to have to be probated in every single country it's one thing to have a home in a certain country but if you have lots of different stocks and shares and Investments and ownership and companies you can put that into one holding company and then you've got a simple plan for that holding company uh when you pass away you may have better estate tax uh protection for example me as a non us person a non- US taxpayer I don't want to die and owe us estate tax on my assets so I set up a company structure that allows me to avoid that that a lot of people aren't aware that if you own us assets us cus assets and you die in most cases they're going to take a fat chunk of that above $60,000 and so that's a form of asset protection but the holding company gives you an extra layer where it's no longer your asset but what you have to do is you got to accept the company properly and move the assets improperly to where uh that company can operate on its own so think of Warren Buffett's Burkshire halfway that's a public company but that is a glorified holding company of a whole whole Buns of stocks and shares and businesses and when Warren Buffett's no longer with us the company will go on you can have your own very mini version of that but rather than incorporating it in your country it may be better to incorporate that in a tax neutral country somewhere else where their business is making sure your assets are protected you've got places like neas for example people have to pay a bond to come after you and so they make it more difficult whereas in the US everyone can just come after you hey it's a sport it's a game and so you know if I'm in the United States hey I'd like to have some assets protected somewhere else the final step is an offshore trust it's no longer your asset you set up the trust again how you put assets into the trust it needs to be done properly and then the trustee handles those assets for you so some similarities to a holding company but the trust gives you that extra layer of potenti some people have the offshore trust own the holding company and so the the Trust might own certain things that are more tangible it might own you know for example and the holding company might own shares uh but you know brokerage accounts they might open for a holding company they might open for an offshore trust they could also open for an individual so there's tax considerations there's estate tax considerations and there's asset protection considerations that go into each of those and so most people consider the best offshore trust jurisdiction at the Cook Islands that's going to cost you you know a reasonable sum it's going to have annual maintenance costs and you've going to talk to the trustee and yeah that trustee is in the cook Island so if you're halfway around the world you know you're going to be doing some emails or calls late at night not the end of the world but you are holding company you know you're going to manage that a bit more yourself there's going to be some ongoing cost it's going to be lower whereas you open an account in your own name that's nothing to do but obviously it goes in the reverse where if you pass away and you have a bank account or a brokerage account or a property that's in your name you know that may have to be probated or or dealt with in the estate fashion and in some of these countries that may take a long long time so what some people do is they have holding companies owned by offshore trust and then the holding company has other holding companies to where let's say you own property in a certain country they don't want your BVI holding company to own the local property some countries allow that but some countries don't so your BVI holding company might own a local company that owns that property and depending on you know what country you're looking at the conditions for having that sub holding company may be not worth it as and you got to pay yourself directors salaries and all kinds of monthly audits have to be done it's probably better to be avoided or it could be pretty straightforward and you just pay an annual renewal fee or not even in some cases for that sub holding company so these structures can can get pretty complicated uh if you want help doing that you go to nomad.com apply we are you can call it a One-Stop shop for all things legal tax reduction uh second citizenship to protect your uh family and your peace of mind as well as asset protection to protect what is yours we do it all Under One Roof we have the lawyers we have the tax professionals we have all the people in the network we create a holistic plan that works across all the different jurisdictions so you really uh only have to go one place met an old client of ours uh was a a client three or four years ago left pretty happy came back to me up to me in the street and said you know I got to come back to you cuz I keep calling these guys who sell asset protection stuff and the malta guy only wants to pitch me on Malta is Malta the best I don't know but that's all he sells so he said I I want to come back and get a holistic plan you're going to hear a lot of people saying holistic plan holistic plan holistic plan uh there's a reason that people want to work for nomad capitalist and very few people leave Nomad capitalist once they're in because we originated holistic plan you get a nomad capitals.com apply we'll be happy to help you now let's go through a couple things you need to have in mind for your asset protection plan how do these things actually help you in the end number one if you have a company where's the company headquarters where is it Incorporated uh for not only low tax but also for safety right if you hear me say Hey you could move to Mexico you could move to Thailand you could move to Montenegro I'm not saying move your company there your company should be in generally speaking a tax neutral jurisdiction and it should be in a jurisdiction that respects your ability to keep your own stuff they you know respect asset protection they respect some level of privacy that's much lower than it used to be I mean we're not here to hide our stuff but we are here to maybe not have someone find our home address have a good company headquarters where can you incorporate it's probably not a place you're going to live British Virgin Islands Cayman Islands Hong Kong bise if you're a little desperate the Marshall Islands for some limited scope of companies okay Switzerland occasionally Works we've got about I think 17 or 18 different jurisdictions that we primarily work with and we've got all the kind of Avatar pros and cons in our uh system uh you also want bolt holes for bad stuff happening so another home I like to own properties around the world not only for lifestyle reasons but when bad stuff happens like a pandemic or God knows what else I have somewhere to go bank accounts you can have tunnels so have bolt holes and you can always build the bolt hole out you can have a home in a country that you go to one week a year on a holiday and if things get bad enough you could always lever that up to 6 months a year right bank account you can open with $1,000 but you know there's not a maximum deposit you'd always put more money in there if you wanted to right so I'll often open bank accounts and I'll say oh it's the minimum it's $100,000 okay you put that in and then you know later if you want to put in $5 million whether it's you know permanently or temporarily you could do that one area where I think people get confused on this is you know the defensive bolt holes doesn't have to be a place that you necessarily agree with all their policies you know there are people who say oh Hong Kong that's part of China Hong Kong still wants to be a place where Capital comes and capital is respected you know the UAE the same thing now I don't like their new 9% tax if you're not living there I don't know why you'd pay a 9% tax if you are living there you make the choice you may not agree with those countries entire policies doesn't mean they don't want your Capital doesn't mean they may not be places to consider now the second angle for asset protection is lifestyle where do you live I think quite frankly you if you're living in a place like the US it's a mindfield there now are you going to move just to avoid that no you can buy insurance you can do all kinds of things including asset protection including offshore asset protection but from a cultural perspective I like to live in places where people get along a bit more and things are a bit more L fair and things a bit more organic where do you want to live I think that plays a role in your asset protection plan us persons especially are at a disadvantage and then the last thing is growth uh you can engage in asset protection to actually grow your money and so there's markets that you may not ever want to live in but your money can grow I mean you've seen a couple great standout Latin American stocks obviously Asia has a lot of hot stocks I mean there's places you can put your money where you're diversifying it but you also could have greater profit potential and so if you look at defensive asset protection but also factor in lifestyle and growth I think those three things can work together collectively and that can work together in tandem with what assets do you have in your own name and that's always a study of where are you going to go which countries you buying those assets in what are you going to have in a holding company again stocks and and intang better there perhaps what might you have in a trust and how do you know you know you can open again in your own name any any type of account with any amount of money holding company you know you probably need a little bit of money but you can do that relatively early trust you know I think once you're at the seven figure level in terms of net worth a trust yeah makes sense you know may not be as valuable if you have a couple hundred grand not giving you Financial advice on that this is personally what I would have done so uh those are the formulas that you can follow for how do you lay your money out in different areas again most people that you're going to talk to they're going to focus on domestic ass protection we'll do this we'll do that hey you're only one wrong move in your own country from whomever it may be from a lawmaker from a judge who knows from everything being taken and so I think that's why Distributing things around the world while still acting ethically and while still fulfilling all of your legal obligations is the smartest thing you can do to make sure you always have some sense of control and no matter what bad happens you at least can deal with that go