Alternatives to HK?
- Thread starter blueraincap
- Start date
It is hard to be free in an unfree world. I juggle 2 countries of residency. Neither are the country I was born in. Have two passports. And have Permanent residency in 2 more countries. Bank accounts in 4 countries, including a "offshore" Channel Islands account, which is useless these days.
It wasn't until I became exposed to numerous jurisdictions that I really woke up to the fact that most/all are the same: they are all structured to keep you poorer than you could be. Every gvt is in on the same game. Ultimately I realized that the greatest definer of who an individual is... is their residency for tax purposes. You MUST have one. It is easier to be deemed genderless.
Multiple countries = multiple vulnerability to governments who think we exist to be subjects to their rules and structures.
It wasn't until I became exposed to numerous jurisdictions that I really woke up to the fact that most/all are the same: they are all structured to keep you poorer than you could be. Every gvt is in on the same game. Ultimately I realized that the greatest definer of who an individual is... is their residency for tax purposes. You MUST have one. It is easier to be deemed genderless.
Multiple countries = multiple vulnerability to governments who think we exist to be subjects to their rules and structures.
10 years ago, nearly every non-resident could open a bank account. Now no more. Of course, if you have too much cash, you still can. But I believe the min balance is higher than only 200k nowadays.
You need to be very wealthy to have min hundreds of k on an account doing nothing for years. And an account doesn't give you tax residency so you still run the risk to be taxed in the countries where you live.
Fwiw I post the link of OCBC premier account with contact for overseas customers below, one could contact them and make an appointment to the nearest related bank branch in their country of residence until recently, at least in Asia, there should be a specific link for asian residents available somewhere.
https://www.ocbc.com/personal-banking/premier-banking-asia/index.page
But agree with your points, opening a bank account is obviously not enough to gain tax residency in Singapore, it has become much more complicated and required larger balances to open offshore accounts over the last years plus with OCBC there is no efficient way to invest that 200k minimum balance afaik, services are aslo much more expensive than with several other banks I´ve used, but they are less complicated than HK banks for instance at the moment (or until very recently).
On a side note I need to change tax residency on several offshore accounts I use to a european jurisdiction (classified as high tax ), and am afraid offshore banks ask me to close the accounts. That would be a big issue, declaring an account in one´s country of residence is not the same as repatriating the money there
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Yeah they haven't raised the minimum those last years contrary to others. But what do you with your 200k there? Invest it with their unit trusts? Hahahaha (for their unit trusts)
Best will be to keep this money on their deposit account. But anyway, we both agree that there's no point of having this account. You can give them a fake address in Singapore (because they usually don't check though they might notice for this one as it's obviously an offshore account from the beginning...). Then your broker accepts your Sg address and consider you Sg resident. But what's next? One day you will get caught when you will bring be the money to where you live and that will be very painful.
Agree. We are pretty aligned.
Everybody has different needs. I am probably too old to take your risks. I moved to Singapore (resident). Low tax is not "no tax" but you get many advantages, one of it being the peace of mind.On a side note I need to change tax residency on several offshore accounts I use to a european jurisdiction (classified as high tax ), and am afraid offshore banks ask me to close the accounts. That would be a big issue, declaring an account in one´s country of residence is not the same as repatriating the money there
Nah, you might have misunderstood that part and we still agree there, I´ve been living in a whole bunch of places since the mid 90s so long experience with offshore set ups, mostly witnessing how it all went South, but I´m about to declare those accounts in Europe now that I´m back, not hide them. Yet I´m still trying to keep most funds offshore and need to change tax residency in the CRS declarations with the offshore banks. Banks have various classifications for foreign jurisdictions, in HK at least, and moving from a country for which residents they are happy to park money to one where local authorities are in a years long crusade against tax havens, offshore banks might find the accounts no longer desirable.
Couple that with the fact the local EU banks don´t want to receive funds from countries perceived as risky nor open accounts to residents or investors there, it can get quite a bit complicated.
I see.
Not sure I can bring any added value to you. I think that you could probably live first in a country that would not question much where the money comes from, but have good international reputation(Sg? Or others?), bring all of it on onshore accounts, trade for few years, pay income taxes on your trade profits, then ONLY would go back to Europe with all the money.
Actually, I intend to go back to Europe in the future. So even though I could optimize to pay a lot less taxes in Sg (no tax on capital gain with a very broad definition of capital gain), I don't try it so when I go back to Europe, all the money is official and properly taxed so my European country doesn't try to cheat me around.
Agree it's complicated.
Good luck to you!