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      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
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      • Browse All Countries

      Best For:

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      • Safest Places For Retirement
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    • 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

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        Home How to

        What’s The Point Of Diversifying Offshore?

        How To Plan Your Own Escape

        by Lief Simon
        Jun 24, 2024
        in How to, Offshore
        0 0
        Colored houses in Rue Cremieux street in Paris. France

        AdobeStock/daliu

        I’ve been reviewing the schedule of confirmed speakers for my Offshore Wealth Summit in Porto, Portugal, this Oct. 16-18, to see who else I might be able to fit in.

        It’s a powerful line-up this year, with more and more diverse speakers than ever before.

        However, as my conference team and I were talking through the presentations and panel discussions we’ve planned, I realized that we were missing something fundamental. We hadn’t included a basic introductory session on the benefits of planting flags around the world.

        That is, what’s the point of diversifying offshore in the first place?

        “Why,” for example, as a consulting client asked me this week, “would someone want an offshore bank account anyway?”

        And “what,” this client continued, “can a second passport really do for me?”

        Good questions.

        Let’s start with the bank account…

        Fundamentally, an offshore bank account allows you to remove some of your money from your home country’s banking system. That’s the big-picture upside.

        An offshore bank account, once in place, also can allow you access to alternative investment options not available back home… especially for Americans and Canadians.

        Through your offshore bank account, you can invest in global stock markets, mutual funds, and currencies. Diversifying your investment portfolio, therefore, is a second reason to think about setting up an offshore account.

        A third compelling reason is that a bank account in another country can provide some modest level of asset protection. Money in an offshore account isn’t within easy grasp of some knucklehead suing you back home.

        An offshore bank account, however, doesn’t provide a high level of asset protection, which is why, depending on your situation, you may want to graduate to offshore structures.

        Offshore structures

        An offshore structure—an LLC, for example—can provide much greater protection for your offshore investments than a bank or brokerage account. Holding offshore assets in an LLC also can translate to some estate-planning benefits.

        I use an offshore LLC to hold much of my global real estate portfolio. Holding a piece of property you own in another country in your own name means your heirs will have to go through probate in that country when you die.

        Holding property in your own name in five countries means your heirs will be forced to wade through probate in five countries. Put all those properties in an offshore LLC, and your heirs will have to transfer only one asset when you die… the LLC.

        An offshore LLC provides a better level of asset protection than an offshore bank account, but if asset protection is your main goal you can go one step further.

        The next level of asset protection after an offshore LLC is an offshore trust. An offshore trust provides the greatest possible level of asset protection and estate planning. Structured correctly, an offshore trust can protect you as an individual from any judgment against your assets. The reason being that, once you transfer the assets to the trust, they are no longer yours. They belong to the trust. You’re simply the beneficiary of that trust and the assets it owns.

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        What about a second residency or citizenship?

        Then there’s back-up residency and second citizenship…

        Back in 2020, Kathleen and I were in France when the pandemic lockdowns hit around the world.

        With our residency in Panama and our U.S. and Irish passports, we had options.

        We decided to remain in France for several months, as the lockdown there wasn’t as severe as the one put in place in Panama and had no compelling reason at the time to be in the States or Ireland.

        Another benefit of having residency in another country is that it means you won’t have to have a return ticket to leave the country every time you decide to visit.

        A colleague decided to spend an undetermined time in Colombia. As he didn’t know when he was going to return to the United States, he bought a one-way ticket.

        When he tried to check in for his flight at the airport in the States, they wouldn’t give him a boarding pass because he didn’t have a return or onward ticket and he wasn’t a citizen or legal resident of Colombia. He had to go online and buy a ticket out of Colombia so he could board his flight.

        A second citizenship provides similar benefits, as well as the option to get rid of your current citizenship if you decide that’s something you’d like to do.

        Thanks to FATCA, more and more Americans are taking the step to renounce their U.S. citizenship.

        For some, it comes down to not wanting to pay a U.S. tax accountant a few thousand dollars a year to file all the required forms… when the upshot of all that reporting is to tell the IRS that they don’t owe them any money.

        However, you can’t give up your current citizenship if it’s the only one you have. You need a second citizenship first.

        Helping people connect the dots from that first offshore bank account or foreign corporation to a backup residency or second citizenship is the primary agenda and objective of this year’s Offshore Wealth Virtual Summit.

        To help me meet that objective, I’ve invited my global network of diversification experts to gather in Porto, Portugal, for the event.

        These are the heaviest-hitting offshore experts you’ll find anywhere… real pros.

        They and I will begin with the basics and then work up to master’s level material.

        Come join us.

        Stay diversified,

        Lief Simon signature

        Lief Simon

        Editor, Offshore Living Letter

        Tags: diversify assetsLLCoffshore structureoffshore wealth summitoverseas bank accountsecond citizenshipsecond residency
        Share96Tweet52
        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
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          • 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

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          • Kotor, Montenegro
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