I was thinking of places to physically move to yourself - without having to break any laws and worry about getting caught. Places for incorporating an offshore company is a whole other list (with only a little overlap), I know Bahrain and Malaysia aren't really good for that.
Ok. That's residency.
People get these different things confused:
- residency = where you "live"
- domicile = where you pay tax. Usually but not always the same as where you live
- citizenship = generally means your passport. Nationality. Possible to revoke and become "stateless". Examples are usually refugees. Britain has taken away citizenship from plenty of previous colonies too.
If you are born you get a birth cert that puts you into the system. It's give and take. You get welfare, school, benefits. You give taxes, freedoms, national service etc. That birth cert has a place and that place locks you to the residency. You are "American" or you are "Libyan".
You can actually be born and skip the birth cert. You can also revoke the contract that is your birth cert. But it's a 2 way contract. You have to take the rough with the smooth.
Now, what happens if you rock up on a shore of somewhere with no passport etc? Well, I guess it might be best to ask Libyans etc who have done this.
Each country has it's own way of determining residency. The residency is usually the first step to the other changes but not always.
Domicile is where you pay tax. It can be hard to separate domicile from residency. Lets say I work on a boat that crosses from Africa into Europe. You might cross >5 borders. Each country bills you and your company for tax. You could end up with less than nothing. So we have double taxation treaties for this.
Companies and corporations in particular move their domicile to somewhere cheap because as a company it is easier for them to move. Profits can then be moved to where it's cheap. Also, as a company, governments give you a nicer treatment. In the UK you can claim back your expenses for VAT for example and corporation tax is lower. If an employee or director takes ownership of funds then that is a wage. You have to pay tax on this but those funds are safe from loss if for example the company gets sued. You can also defer profits and pile profits back into the business for more profit. This is the advantage of being a company. There's also massive scope for corruption.
Employee proles think this is somehow immoral and turn a business matter into personal matters, thinking that somehow they are not a company. Well, that is NOT our the government and business treat you. Everyone with a birth cert has a company entity. If you can arrange income in a way like a company does, giving yourself a legal entity that you have more control of and you have enough cash to cover the fees you can get the rewards like a company can.
That's why I ask where is the cheapest place to incorporate with favorable tax is.
The ideal setup is to:
- have a company somewhere low tax (pseudo-domicile)
- have a second passport in a place that doesn't ask for many duties (citizenship)
- live somewhere cheap on tax (resident) but,
- live close to somewhere fun and cheap (tourist)
How you achieve that depends on where you're coming from. The USA is one of the more difficult places to come from (banking blacklists, visas that aren't visas etc) but it's also the place where these processes have been researched the most with the most help on hand.
If you're interested send me a PM saying where you're from, background, income or whatever and I'll have a guess as to what options you might have as to escaping.
edit: Most of the time it comes down to economics and commitment: how much can you dedicate to this?
