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    • Countries

      Top Destinations:

      Whether you’re looking for fun and sun, a peaceful retirement, or the chance to earn some extra income, you’ve got a real world of opportunity open to you… In short, we’ve done our best to narrow down your best options, but only you can decide the right country for you.

      • Spain
      • Portugal
      • Panama
      • Belize
      • Colombia
      • Cyprus
      • Mexico
      • France
      • Montenegro
      • Browse All Countries

      Best For:

      • The Best Places To Retire
      • Health Care Abroad
      • Cost Of Living
      • Investing in Real Estate
      • Establishing Residency
      • Gun Laws In The World
      • English-Speaking Countries
      • Safest Places For Retirement
      • Best Places In Latin America
    • Budgets

      How Much Will It Cost You To Live Overseas?

      The only honest answer is, we have no idea. And neither does anyone else. The only one who can answer that question is you. Here’s the most important thing to understand about budgeting your new life overseas…

      Super Cheap

      • Chitré, Panama
      • Santa Marta, Colombia
      • Phuket, Thailand
      • Dumaguete, The Philippines

      Cheap

      • Medellin, Colombia
      • Boquete, Panama
      • Kyrenia, Cyprus
      • Hua Hin, Thailand
      • The Algarve, Portugal

      Affordable

      • Valencia, Spain
      • Cascais, Portugal
      • Las Terrenas, The DR
      • Pisa, Italy
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      • The Panama City Beaches
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      Follow Us:

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        PANAMA CITY, PANAMA

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        overseas living letter offers affordable retirement guidance
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        Home news Business

        The Truth About Establishing An Offshore Corporation

        Who Really Needs An Offshore Corporation?

        by Lief Simon
        Sep 15, 2022
        in Business, Investing
        0 0
        Beach on a St. Kitts island with black sand

        Adobe Stock/Sergey Kelin

        One question I’m asked more than most any other is to do with structures.

        Specifically: Do you need one?

        Sometimes people come up to me at conferences with file folders in their hands.

        “I just came back from a vacation in Panama… or Nevis… or the British Virgin Islands,” they tell me. They’re smiling. They’ve got nice suntans. And they’ve got these file folders…

        “While I was there,” they continue, “I set up this corporation. Now I’m wondering,” they say, “what should I do with it?”

        I give them the only answer I can, which is: I have no idea. There’s no one-size-fits-all strategy or magic-bullet structure.

        In almost every one of these conference conversations, I find that the person set up the structure because somebody said it was something he ought to do. His golf buddy at the club told him he had an offshore corporation and so he thought he should have one, too.

        That’s backwards. And nonsense.

        Never start with a structure. Start with a purpose.

        Have a goal in mind first, then go out and find the structure and the jurisdiction that best serve that objective.

        Which brings us back to our starting point question:

        Why would anyone want an offshore entity?

        One of the most common reasons to establish a foreign entity is because you’re buying a piece of property overseas. A foreign entity can be the best way to take title.

        I’ve bought real estate in 25 countries, and I own property right now in more than a dozen. Each purchase has been handled differently. Sometimes I’ve taken title in my own name, sometimes I’ve formed an entity to take title.

        Sometimes I use the same entity to hold a second or third piece of property… sometimes when making a new purchase I form a new entity.

        Why make it so complicated? In fact, my objective is to simplify.

        However, I’m always balancing simple against two other overriding agendas—mitigating taxes and planning for my estate.

        The piece of property Kathleen and I own in Croatia, for example, is held in our own name. This is for tax purposes. You have no capital gains tax liability in Croatia when you sell real estate you’ve owned for three years or longer, as long as the property has been held in your name.

        If it’s been held in an entity, you are liable for capital gains tax whenever you sell a piece of property in this country.

        In other cases, holding a piece of property in an entity is the best choice for local asset protection or local probate. Again, the right choice depends on many factors to do with your personal circumstances and the jurisdiction where you’re investing.

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        Not only is there generally more than one right way to structure your holdings, but there are also, in every case, wrong ways.

        In thinking this through for any particular property purchase, remember the competing agendas. The real estate agent’s agenda is straightforward. He wants to close the deal. So he’ll recommend the quickest possible way to take title. That won’t necessarily be the best way for you. What makes sense for you is the strategy that balances tax liabilities with estate-planning and asset-protection benefits.

        Start by assuming that maybe you don’t need a structure at all.

        I have a great story to help make this point that I’ve been retelling for so long that the woman whose story it is got in touch recently to say that she was going to start charging me a royalty every time I told it again.

        She was kidding, so here goes…

        Years ago, this woman made a trip to Panama because her friends told her she should check it out. Her friends also told her that she needed a Panama corporation… that she “had to have” a Panama corporation. So, when she traveled to Panama for vacation, she set up a Panama corporation.

        I met her four years later at a conference. Her first question to me was, “What should I do with this Panama corporation I set up four years ago?”

        “Dump it,” I told her after talking through her situation. She had no need for a Panama corporation and never had. Why pay the annual fees to keep it current? There was no point.

        Which is why, again, I say: Start with the goal.

        Have an objective in mind and then set out to find the structure and the jurisdiction that meet it. Don’t put the cart before the horse.

        And try to think long term.

        It’s hard when you’re starting out, and harder, too, the younger you are. With decades of living and investing ahead of you, how can you predict objectives or challenges? You can’t really, so you have to stick with the very big picture.

        Start by having a conversation with yourself, your spouse if you have one, and your attorney. Talk through what you’re most concerned about, what you’re trying to avoid, and what you’re trying to build. Are your heirs a priority? Or is your priority a concern over someone slipping on the stairs in one of your rental properties and suing you for everything they can get their hands on?

        Try to think as much of this through as you can from the starting line, especially when forming entities to hold property you’re purchasing overseas. It’s possible to retitle a piece of property, into the name of another or a new entity, but it’s not as simple as it can be in the United States. Transfer fees range from 1% to 10%. Depending on the country, retitling definitely can get expensive.

        Lief Simon
        Editor, Offshore Living Letter

        Tags: diversifyEstablishing an Offshore Corporationinvesting overseasLive abroadlive overseasOffshore Corporation
        Share88Tweet52
        Lief Simon

        Lief Simon

        Lief Simon has lived and worked in 7 countries on 5 continents and traveled to more than 75 countries. His real estate investment career began with a $5,000 down payment on a three-flat building in Chicago. Less than three years later, Lief sold the building for a leveraged return of 3,000%—$150,000 in profit after closing costs and commissions.

        From there, he turned his attention overseas and has bought property in 24 countries including France, Croatia, Portugal, Ireland, Belize, Spain, Argentina, Cyprus, Romania, and beyond. Thanks to his decades-long career as a global property investor, Lief has built a multi-million-dollar portfolio that includes rental properties, significant land holdings, and 7 personal residences.

        Lief has established residency in 3 countries and acquired a second passport from Ireland.

        In 2008 Lief and wife Kathleen Peddicord made the most important investment of their lives—a 215-acre oceanside finca, known as Los Islotes. There, on Panama’s largely undiscovered Veraguas coast, they’ve installed underground electricity, water, and internet and built a forever family home that sits at the heart of their ultimate vision: a gold standard private residential community for those in search of a true safe haven escape.

        Lief’s latest book, “Cowboy Millionaire—The New American Pioneer,” collects all the wisdom he has learned in three decades of living and investing outside America.

        He offers advice on international diversification in his twice-weekly Offshore Living Letter and monthly Simon Letter dispatches. For real estate investment opportunities, check out his monthly Global Property Advisor service.

        If you’d like to meet Lief in person, join him for one of our upcoming in-country conferences. You’ll find further details here.

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          To Live Overseas?

          Super Cheap

          • Chitré, Panama
          • Santa Marta, Colombia
          • Phuket, Thailand
          • Dumaguete, The Philippines

          Cheap

          • Medellin, Colombia
          • Boquete, Panama
          • Kyrenia, Cyprus
          • Hua Hin, Thailand
          • The Algarve, Portugal

          Affordable

          • Valencia, Spain
          • Cascais, Portugal
          • Las Terrenas, The DR
          • Pisa, Italy
          • La Rochelle, France
          • Mazatlán, Mexico

          Luxury

          • Ambergris Caye, Belize
          • Kotor, Montenegro
          • The Panama City Beaches
          • Paris, France

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