- Good morning. This is John Richardson speaking with you from Toronto, Canada. Today is Monday, October the 14th, 2024. Thanks, Dave. Thanks, Giving Day in Canada. I think it's Columbus Day in the United States. And it would be no day of any significance at all, but I may be wrong to my guests today with speaking with me from Brazil. And I'd like to introduce to you Jairs, those of you who are on Twitter and social media may recognize him as, I think his handle is, the Jairs way is that it? - That's correct, yes. - T-A-G-J-E-R-Z-W-A-Y, I think. - Correct. - And it's gonna be a very interesting discussion for me. He's in the second citizenship, digital nomad, global mobility space, and it's carved out quite a following. And I got in touch with him because of his tweet about President Trump's announcement to Ann's citizenship taxation, which I thought was interesting. So welcome Jairs, how are you today? - Thanks, I am doing good. Thanks for hosting us. My name is Jairs. I have been doing this for a while now. I originally grew up in the United States. So I'm an American citizen. I subsequently acquired Austrian citizenship. So I'm a dual citizen. I've been working in this space for about a decade now and have a lot of insights into things like taxation, global mobility, I help people, get second citizenships, residencies, business formation, tax strategies, that sort of thing. - So in other words, you know, I always think of myself as an expatriation lawyer as helping people with life transitions. And it sounds like you're helping people with life transitions too. Would that be a fair statement? - Very much so, I think. Yeah, I think there's so much to transform it to an experience. And those of you who have taken that step, the big step of leaving your country and going to somebody else know what we're talking about and completely life transformation. - Oh, sir, it certainly is. I think for a lot of people they wouldn't recognize who they were, I think. You know, after having made that tremendous leap. Tell me a little bit about how you see the world generally of acquiring second citizenship acquisition. Let's start with that. And then we'll get to the residencies. - How does someone absolute? - Well, there are three primary paths people can take together second citizenship. You can get it by descent, which is what I did. A lot of people from the United States, from Canada, they have descendants, they are descendants from relatives who originally immigrated from European functions. And in a lot of cases, they have a pretty clear path by tracing their ancestors and reclaiming a citizenship. So that's the first path. And I usually tell people to start there. - There is also a stocker and Italian or two that come to mind very quickly. - Those are probably the easiest, but you can generally go back the furthest. But also there's real opportunity, any of the former countries of the Austrian Ungarian Empire. So that huge swath, that huge area of Europe also provides a lot of good opportunities. That's how I myself was able to. - I plier my offspring and my second citizenship. - Very interesting. All right, so citizenship by descent next. - Would be the first one. The second is citizenship by investment, which basically means you buy a citizenship. The best known programs are some of the Caribbean countries, St. Lucia, St. Kitts, Santagua, a few others. Those have gone up substantially in price over the last year. So before starting pricing a little over a hundred thousand. And now it's in the 220 to 250 range starting. So really that's where a much higher net were. There are potential tax benefits of those citizenships by investment. But overall as the price has gone up, the value of doing that, especially in my opinion, is lessened just because of the cost. And then the third way is citizenship by residency. So in most countries, if you live there as a legal resident for a number of years, you're entitled to apply for citizenship to naturalize. Some point, it depends on the country. It depends on the type of residency you have. But in general, it takes from 10 to 10 years, depending on the specific country. - So the name of the game there, though, is really acquiring legal residency first, correct? - With that third path, yes. The one possible exception is in Argentina, although they very likely will be changing it. Argentina has simply required two years of residence. It doesn't necessarily have to be legal residence. So a lot of people have come to Argentina, just sort of done visa runs for a couple of years and applied for citizenship. And that has worked, although Milan is, he wants to end that. - Okay. - So it might not continue into the future. - All right. So, soon as you're through descent, one would not have to leave the United States to achieve that, would not necessarily have to leave. - Correct. With the first two paths, that's something that can be done completely without the things. So you never have to set foot in my country to complete the process. - All right. So where the action is, and I think probably a lot of the difficulty with tax and immigration issues, et cetera, clearly is with the third one, which is finding a way to, I guess, live legally. And we'll call it your target country, the country that you want to target for citizenship. - Okay, actually, before we go there, I just had a thought that popped into my head. I wonder if you comment on me. Let's say that you're sitting in the United States for Canada, you know, one of these legacy first world democracies, right, we fall over the Union for the UK. - And you're saying, well, you know, it's really not happening for me here. And I want another citizenship. I mean, leaving aside the how to target citizenship in country A or country B, I wonder if you comment on the following. What are some of the considerations you might consider in terms of deciding what citizenship you wanted to target? - Well, a big one, of course, is cost. And I think another big issue is what's the purpose in the citizenship? So a lot of my clients, I think we look to get citizenship without thinking, hey, this is the country I'm actually gonna live. So a lot of people, as you mentioned, Irish, Italian, ancestry, or Austrian, Hungarian empire, those people, a lot of times they're out flying for those passports, but can they want to have a plan B? They want to have another option. They want to have some visa free travel that perhaps the U.S. passport doesn't offer. But the idea of actually living in that country full-time is not necessarily the real goal in dealing. So I think the first question, I always ask the people is why do you want to do that? What is the purpose of going down this land? Is it the visa free access? Is it a plan B? Is it tax strategy? Are you looking to eventually run down to your U.S. citizenship? What is the purpose of getting the second citizenship? - Well, plan B, by plan B, I mean, I just said that all, please plan B. I understand that to mean sort of an escape hatch. - Yeah, I think especially over the last few years as the world has just gotten crazier and crazier, people have said, "Hey, these quote-unquote stable democracies "that have sort of been this bedrock for generations now, "maybe aren't so stable." So in a worst-case scenario, whether that's something politically where maybe a government's gonna come in and go after your views, or whether it's the true worst-case scenario where we have a world where three are some new virus or something, people just wanna have another option. What COVID really showed a lot of people was, "Hey, just having one citizenship, one residency, "really can lead to you being stuck somewhere, "maybe you don't want to be." And I think when that happens, it just opened up a lot of people to both the possibility, but also the necessity that it's something important to do about another option. - Right. Okay, when I was getting at a some extent, maybe you can comment on this. It seems to me, for example, that if you had Canadian citizenship, it gives you sort of residual access to the United States, for example, right? I mean, if you have any thoughts on, or, you know, for example, you know, EU citizenship, where it would give you access to the whole, that whole group of countries. Any comments on that type of stuff, particularly with your examples? - So, yes, of course. So the nice thing about the EU, especially for people from the US, Canada, getting that EU passport really gives you optionality because it allows you to live and work, potentially, anywhere in the EU zone. So if you get an Italian passport, and we say, "Yeah, I want to go live in Spain." Even, "I want to get a job in Spain," or start a business in Spain, it's as simple as showing up in Spain, and basically saying, "I'm here, I'm going to need you," citizen. In Latin America, although it's not currently as strong as the EU region, there's something called Mericosur, which is a trade group similar to the EU, a set of nations that's gotten together, and eventually they're implementing a set of rules similar to the EU that will allow you to more and to live in any of these countries. So this applies to Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, Colombia, that blocked South American countries. And that's a region that personally, and very, very bullish for the future. - All right, interesting stuff. Okay, so now let's look at this from the perspective of sort of the elephant in the room, right? So as an American citizen, and this is what brings us together today, we have this whole problem. If you see it that way, maybe not everybody does, of citizenship taxation. And it's basic form. What that means is that a US citizen, I cannot leave the country and it seems to be a US tax resident. In other words, they're always subject to the internal revenue code and its totality because they're a US citizen. Would you agree with that? - I would agree. Let me just explain one thing. There's three basic forms of taxation. It's of course a little more complicated, but just in a broadest sense, you have citizenship by taxation by citizenship, which is the USA system that you just explained. You also have what's called territorial tax system, which basically means you're only taxed on income, generated inside that country. So that applies to a country like Panama, a country like Oregon, a country like UAE, why you see so many people moving to the place like Dubai, or at least setting up a residency there. And the final taxation system, which most countries in the world have, including almost all the EU countries, is called residency based taxation. And what that means is you're usually taxed on your worldwide income, but only if you're a resident of that country. So for example, I have Austrian citizenship, as I mentioned. Austria operates on a residential taxation system based on residency. So what that means is, if I did not have my US citizenship, I just had my Austrian citizenship. If I did not live in Austria, I would not be subject to any formal taxation or filing requirements in Austria. Not even on Austrian source income. - Well, perhaps on Austrian source income, that's a good point. It depends on the specific country. But with a lot of countries, you're once you leave their sort of web taxation, you're not subject to taxation of any time in that control. - In the case of the United States citizenship taxation, what's interesting, what seems to be the characteristic of citizenship taxation is that you're subject to taxation by a country that you do not live in, right? - Exactly. And one of the things I personally experienced that I hear from a lot of my clients is I'm spending all this money paying taxes. And yet I never go to the United States. I never receive any of those services that supposedly one receives for paying and you know, 20 to 50% of your income to the high limits. - Did you give me? - And I think that's just... - Did you give me sort of a graphic example of this? - You know, for example, take a client of mine who hasn't been in the United States in a decade, okay? And businesses and other countries makes income from those businesses and from investments he has around the world. Yet he still has to file a tax return, which is over 100 billion because of the tax returns. If you are an expatriate or much more complicated and pays 10s with not hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, despite the fact he had absolutely zero interest, zero ties to the U.S. and received no tangible benefits other than the passport from having that U.S. citizenship. - And could we add that this could include somebody with no U.S. source income whatsoever? - With no, exactly. In this case, it's an individual who has no U.S. source than whatsoever. It's somebody who has a remote job or something like that who works for the U.S. Perhaps Stephen, somebody who has an LLC or some sort of business entity in the U.S. It's a somewhat different story, I would say, but you could still make an argument that they're receiving benefit from the U.S. But there are a lot of people out there, I'll give you another example. There are any number of people who were basically born as U.S. citizens and literally have never set foot in the United States who are still subject to U.S. taxation because of this trickle-in law. - That's really amazing stuff, right? So, when we talk about residence-based taxation, you know, that's really taxation that's based on the circumstances of your life where you live, right? But sit-- - Exactly. - Isn't that actually based more just on the circumstances of your birth? - Exactly, and the circumstances of your birth in many cases that you have no control of. So, you look at somebody who's literally never set foot in the U.S. and is still subject to U.S. taxation because they have happened to be born an American. So, the only real legal option for these individuals is to renounce and pay money to renounce citizenship, which in my mind is crazy. - Well, I think in the minds of an awful lot of people that's crazy. Well, now, you know, so let's say you're, you know, leaving a side be, you know, the person with the U.S. LLC. So, arguably there is a connection. Let's just keep it real simple, okay? And take somebody who, you know, as a U.S. citizen, let's say they, you know, they after high school, they go to college and say the UK or something like that, you know, and they decide to stay, no U.S. source income. They just get a job, you know, that's it. They just get a job in London or something. And so what I'm understanding, I'd be saying, is that those people still have to pay America. Is that right? - Depends on the income, but in most cases, they're at the very least going to be subject to filing taxes every year, which is an extremely expensive undertaking as an expat. But in a lot of cases, they are going to be subject to a both UK and U.S. taxes in some form. - And they're anticipating, you know, the President Trump discussion, that would be double taxation, wouldn't it? - That would be double taxation. You know, I know that the, well, the original intent of this law was twofold. It's, of course, the U.S. overreach, thinking they have the right to everything. But I do think there was a certain, if I may give the benefit of the doubt, they wanted people, they wanted to prevent people from sort of the gaming system. So, you know, somebody who ostensibly are going to keep those U.S. ties and keep those benefits is very different than somebody who's truly not living and not receiving any benefits from the U.S. So I think you have to differentiate the intent. And if you were to repeal the law, as I very much hope they do, I think you have to be very clear in what actually then qualifies as a U.S. person and what does not. Right now, they have what's something called the foreign earned income exclusion. And that allows you to exclude a certain amount of certain types of income from U.S. tax. It's not as good as most people think it is, but it does help a lot of people. But it has very specific criteria for qualification. So I think you would have to. - That's right. - That you're a U.S. tax resident though, right? - It does not, it's just basically a tax deduction. So to speak. - Of course, you remain a U.S. tax resident. You can never escape that. But we'll just give you a little bit of a partial break under these very narrow circumstances. Would that be a fair? - Exactly. - Exactly. The one thing that I do somewhat like about that though, is it a defined although not clear enough, what exactly allows somebody to qualify for this exemption? It says, okay, if you can only spend 35 days in the U.S. Or you have to be a bona fide resident of another country, which is where the log is very sort of sticky because what does that even mean? You know, I've had clients go to battle with the IRS on that definition. And I'm not even sure if the IRS knows what it means. I think they just sort of make it up and they go along. What exactly is it? - We recognize it when we see it, but we're in trouble defining it. - Exactly. And it's probably not what you're doing. (laughs) I think that by IRS logic. But I think, you know, if you remove the double taxation or the tax citizenship-based taxation, you would have to, as clear as possible, define then what exactly makes somebody a tax resident or U.S. purposes. And it should be something tangible. I don't have an issue with that. What I have an issue with is just by the virtue of citizenship, that makes you a tax resident. And to me, that's just unfair. - It's sort of status-based citizenship, right? I mean, it's the same thing with the green card, right? Oh, you're a citizen. You don't know no matter where you go or what you do. You know, you're subject to the internal revenue code, based on who you are. You know, most of the cases. - And actually, that's a good point you just brought up 'cause a lot of people don't realize that. Once you have a U.S. green card, as long as you keep that U.S. green card, that entitled are forces, U2K, U.S. tax, as long as you hold the card. And a lot of people don't realize that. They'll leave the U.S. and they still have that card and they're still required in the file. - Well, you know, another way of looking at it is this. You know, you have all these high-paid athletes, the NBA and that National Basketball Association, that kind of thing, right outside of the U.S. I would bet that those people are not in the U.S. on green cards. - Very likely, very likely. Another kind of immigration says, because part of the problem with this, you know, you talk about renouncing U.S. citizenship and we haven't even talked about exit taxes. But you hand in the green card, if you've had it for eight years and you're subject to exactly the same rules. So, you know, as I've always said, you know, there's a reason that it's a green card. It's because it's Kryptonite. Kryptonite. - And I tell people, you know, think long and hard, I'm not saying never to get a green card. Of course, there are many circumstances where you need it or where it makes sense for one to get it. But as sort of this aspirational goal that so many people in the world have, especially high net worth individuals, I don't think a lot of them have thought through all of the ramifications. - Oh, they need some decent professional advice, but spoiler alert, I'll give you the answer. - You got one? - In a lot of cases, you do not, that's correct. - Or dangerous it is. I mean, I think green cards are fine for people who have nothing. But especially, you know, you look at this. I've always had trouble with this EV5 program thing, right? I mean, you see, pay a million dollars to get a green card. Well, that means that you must have non-US assets if you have a million dollars. So you're paying the million dollars to buy a status, okay? That exposes all the rest of your assets. You know, the pot's trouble, right? Anyway, all right. So, I mean, it's pretty clear that, you know, we go back to this person sitting and saying, well, you know, I wanna pick up another citizenship and, you know, I'm gonna do that first by getting another residency. So, you know, I'm thinking, so generally, you know, unless it's by the center. So I mean, you gotta go somewhere, which means they're outside the United States, which means they're still subject to the tax code and that type of thing. So it really is a problem. And, you know, you've been doing this for some years, I think. And let's just see here. So you had a tweet up a couple days ago, which prompted me to get in touch with you, discuss this. So your Twitter handle, all of a sudden, is left the screen, hang on a minute here, wait a second. Your Twitter handle, which is the jurisway, T8. But what you did was, are you able to pull a tweet up on your end? What you did was you talked about a President Trump's a proposal, which was, here we go back up again, yeah, here we go, okay. And I'm gonna read this. And what you're saying here is, and I'll put the link to this in the podcast description, ending double taxation for non-resident U.S. citizens, is an issue that most people just don't understand. Yeah, no doubt on that point. Agreed. I mean, unless you've lived it, you have no support. Right? Exactly. Sation. But, you know, you've got some nice check marks here. I like your, I like your, your, speech style with these check marks. You're gonna have to teach me how to do this. Other country citizenship based taxation, well, actually isn't really only of the United States that has it. I mean, sure there's that here. There's one other, a chair to ya. I don't even know if I'm pronouncing it right. It's some worn torn African nation that nobody's here now. That's the only other country that has citizenship based taxation. Okay, so let's say effectively only the United States. It's the U.S., exactly. You're saying the F-horn Earn income exclusion exempts many types of income. Well, you know, we talked about that, right? That's our, our personal. Yeah. And we made up, who's able to exclude, what is it, around a hundred and something of sale. About a hundred, 130,000. The, it's more complicated. It's more complicated than this, but, but just in the broadest sense, what it allows is earned income. So, so it's basically salaried income. It can be self employment income. But if it's like income that comes from an LLC or something, you still have to pay the, the self employment and social security contribution. So you're still going to be subject to. Yeah, absolutely. So even if you're able to exclude a certain amount of salary income or self employment income, right? Under this, it doesn't get you out of so security taxes, right? Exactly. So that's an, and that of course is why people create small business corporations. We won't get into that in this podcast, you know, to avoid that anyway. You know, you make the point that most Americans abroad receive zero services for the taxes they pay. You say most. I've never heard no American abroad it gets any services for the taxes. What would be an example of getting services? Well, I think a lot of people, and the fact people still don't know how to buy, they're under the impression. If they're in a country and something happens, they're going to be able to go to the US Consulates and they're going to be able to receive assistance. And while it's some level that may be true, this assistance you do receive is not going to be what you think it is. Any service that is provided to you is billed at an astronomical cost. So to give an example, when all this terrible stuff happened in Israel and Palestine over the last year, the US Consulate did eventually go in and help people with repatriation flights, but then they billed the people for those flights at astronomical costs. So really the net benefit of a lot of these things is not what you would vote for. You know, people will say, oh, well, social security, things like that. But social security is actually not a government benefit. It's something that you paid for, and you paid much more than you will ever get out of it. So, you know, the US, you don't get healthcare, you don't get, you don't get hate education, upper higher education. It's just, you don't, like a lot of the EU countries arguably do provide some services that you're getting for your tax dollars. And that's just not the case for new US persons. Certainly not for US persons not living in the United States. You're not using the roads. You're not using anything. So you're literally receiving no benefits. - Well, it's not exactly American Express Platinum card concierge service, that's for sure. Of course, neither is American Express Platinum card concierge. All right. The next one you may say, ending this draconian, is that a very judgment? Ending this. - Is that what? - I'll see what I said in G4 variable and encourage investment in the US. It's not like you may have been reading stuff that I or other people have written on this topic. Can you explain a little bit of that, your view? - So basically, in this sort of world, there are all these different charts and explanations about the value of different citizenships and passports. And there are different factors, these are free access, not the passports, how valuable these passports are in practice in the world. And what we've noticed is over the last decade or so, the value of the American passport has declined greatly. And in great art, it is declined because of the citizenship-based taxation. So that's an issue which directly impacts the value of the passport, which we hold as Americans. And so my theory is, if you were to end this, it would make the US citizenship much more valuable. We've seen a trend over in this past period, a lot of high net worth valuable Americans are going through the process, more and more of renouncing their citizenship. High net worth individuals from other countries, a lot of them who could and otherwise would get US citizenship choose not to do it because of this draconian citizenship-based taxation. So I think by ending this, you would attract a lot of very valuable new citizens. And you would keep a lot of people who are leaving. And for everybody else, it's just gonna increase the value of the American passport. It will make it a more desired upset. - Well, yeah, and that doesn't even account for the damage that means US citizens can cause you outside the United States in the sense of lost job. - Absolutely, banking, for example, we work with a number offshore bank accounts that for high net worth individuals really help with both asset planning, asset protection in countries like Singapore, Hong Kong, Switzerland, and most of those bank accounts specifically exclude US citizens. So the first question on the application, are you a US citizen checking the box? No, sorry, we can't open an account for you. - Yeah, no, it's a terrible problem. I mean, it's as though if citizenship's were stocks, right, securities as though US citizenship traged at a discount relative to every, at the passport of any other first world democracy. - Exactly. - I mean, it's amazing stuff. I mean, do these people not understand how much they're damaging their, you know, their citizens, the country as a whole? Yeah, I went to, this reminds me somehow, I went to a presentation, it's a book called, I can't remember the author called The Blessing of Foreign Talent or something like that. I've been anyway, and what it really was, is you've got how important immigration is, how important it is to, you know, have and keep certain types of people as members of your political community. And this is the exact opposite. I mean, it's just driving people out. And I know of no other, I mean, do you, can you think of any other country that has done such damage to its own, you know, to the value of its own citizenship? - No other country comes close in, and the thing that's really interesting, that the further, sorry, my dog is very joking. So the one thing I think that people don't realize is I get further and further into this space, the more I come to realize that the biggest asset the US really has is its branding, its marketing. That's really what has made so much, has given the US so much success, is that other countries believe in the US's success. And what they're doing with the citizenship, what they're doing with the brand. And this isn't just now, this isn't something that started with this current administration. This has been a work in progress, really I would say in the last 20 plus years, I've just devaluing the brand of the US, the value of that US passport, and what it's worth. - And that's just devastating. - The branding is so important for the US. - Well, I haven't got, yeah, I agree with you completely. The only real value, I think of a US passport as access to the US at this point. I mean, otherwise, I think you're possibly better off with almost any other passport if you're living outside the United States, or any other first world democracy passport if you're living outside the United States. - I think so. I think really the only other thing I could think for some people is access to the US job market, which of course, it's possible now to access in other ways, but the US still does have the best job markets in the world. I always tell people who come to me who are thinking of renouncing. If you think at any point in your life, you are going to need access or want access to that US job market, don't do it. - That's right. And I think another way to put it, or the way I put it with people is that, first of all, I think that US... Okay, no question, right? I mean, I think it all citizenship is at bay, but I think the citizenship is bay, but it's a depreciating ass at the older you get, right? - Yes. - Yeah, I think it's a great value if you're... I mean, I just help people achieve what they want to achieve, but if I were having a discussion with some 25-year-old, I'd have a somewhat different discussion than somebody who was 65, okay? I'm sorry, it's 25. I think US citizenship has a lot more value. And I think it does at bay, but for somebody who's sort of in retirement, particularly if they're trying to preserve their assets, okay? Maybe a good idea to get rid of US citizenship. You know, if you can do it in a cost-effective way, of course there are exit taxes, et cetera. But, you know, back to your tweet here, right? So now you're saying most Americans abroad don't vote. I think that's almost certainly true, even though I haven't bolded them. Okay, I think that's almost certainly true, but what you're saying here is, you conclude with what every one of us needs to vote for Trump this time. Okay, and this is in the context of his statement, his standing up saying, you know, it's time to end double taxation for Americans abroad. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? So I think both for Americans all through our abroad and anybody who thinks that at some point in their life, they might want to go abroad. This is such an important issue. It's much more important than you probably think it is, because not just the damage that is being done to the American brand and the value of the passport, but your personal finances. What's happening now, getting caught up in this web of double taxation is just so unfair to Americans who live abroad. We can't say for sure, even if Trump has elected, this will happen, but just the fact that he started this conversation, that it's an issue now that people are talking about. In this last week, I saw articles about this in the financial times, in the Washington, New York times, the Wall Street Journal. And this was an issue that is basically not discussed outside of these weird sort of communities that you and I participated in. It's just not a mainstream issue, but it is an issue that needs to be and should be much more important with mainstream voters. It's an important issue. - Well, you know, listen to your explanation there. Comment here with great interest. What really jumped out at me was, I think you quite said this directly, or maybe you did, but didn't emphasize it hugely was, you know what, even if you're in the United States, this is a serious impediment. You're ever being able to leave the United States, isn't it? - Exactly, exactly. And it's something that is used, and I think intentionally used to make it more difficult for you to leave. And I have a feeling that if it's not a law that's changed in the next few years, that is the direction that, well, governments in a particular administration could go to make it more and more difficult for somebody to be able to leave, whether it's by increasing exit taxes, whether it's by, you know, making tax policy more complicated and more webs that sort of just get you if you're outside the US. It's something that really needs to be ended. And I think a lot of Americans more and more will wanna eventually leave the US, whether it's permanently, whether it's for a time, whether it's for a couple of year, whether it's in retirement. And you need to understand that having this law just makes it more difficult. I think a lot of people are being forced out, actually, of the United States. You know, retirees and that, you know, can't live effectively there. But I mean, this is not, you know, 1950 anymore, just after the Second World War. I mean, the United States is not the center of the world or even close. And to prevent Americans, American citizens from being able to access opportunities worldwide is, you know, I think a terrible thing. But you know what I could add on that is, I don't know how many Americans are aware of the law that says you can't leave the United States, except on a US passport. - So you have to enter and you have to leave on a US passport, correct? - Right. And the problem is not so much entering because as a citizen, they have to let you enter. I think the problem really is not being able to leave without a passport, right? Because, I mean, there's this great article for anybody listening. Just look up Ruth Shipley's passport. It's a very interesting, it's an old article about how, you know, the administration was basically preventing people from leaving the United States by not issuing passports. - Yeah. - You know, I mean, these laws are there. They're on the books, okay? They are right there and they exist today. And I think that this is a problem. So basically your view, and I obviously agree with you, okay? I mean, your view is that this is a far bigger problem than even Americans abroad imagine it to be. Is that a fair statement? - Absolutely. - Because would you agree, my impression, and this is my impression, may I understand whether you think this is right? I don't even think that Americans brought even understand the complexity of this on the full extent of their tax and reporting obligations. Would you agree with that? - Completely, and I think a lot of expats to their detriment are expats or Americans abroad are not properly filing taxes as they should be. - Oh, just a question, no question about it. - And I've seen, you know, some people get away with it for many years, but many people, it catches up with them eventually. I think absolutely it's an issue that impacts people in a way that they don't fully understand. - Oh, yeah, I mean, that's one of the great understatement of our age, it's right. But I think it's partly because this is so complex and the learning curve on it is so long. And I think also there's such a discrepancy between what really is, what it really means to be a tax and reporting compliant American citizen of what's really going on, just because people don't understand it. And I don't think that, and I don't think that a majority of the people on tax preparation is we fully understand it either. - Most most US tax prepared and CPAs don't deal with this issue at all. So then people go to them, a lot of times they're not filing correctly because the tax professional they've gone to just doesn't understand this aspect. So a peculiar aspect of American tax law. - Yeah, I think that's right. - Well, you know, looking at your tweet here, it said 107,000 views. Am I reading that? Is that, is that- - Yeah, I can check it. Sounds of all right. - Sorry? - That's what it said, yeah, 107,000. - That seems like, is that a normal tweet? Do your tweets normally get 107,000 views? - No, I mean, that's pretty good engagements. Most of the tweets I write get in the low thousand. So that's definitely one of the better ones. - You got people's attention with this thing, didn't you? - Yeah. So hopefully, hopefully that makes a small difference. - Well, I hope it makes a difference too. I mean, obviously I was impressed with this tweet. And I wonder if it might be a good idea to engage other people in this space generally and get them and get them retweeting your tweet or something because I really think that this is an issue that requires some nurturing awareness. And I also think that regardless of how the election goes, you know, there's gonna be discussion and tax reform. There has to be. And it seems to me that this has got to be part of it. And I think the people in your community can, you know, play a role in really raising awareness here. - Great. - Well, that's great. We've been out of this for a while. We can do another one down the road. Probably a good time though to move towards the end. What are some other comments or thoughts that you'd like to add here today? And by all means, get your contact information in. I mean, this has been a great discussion and I appreciate it. - Absolutely, it was great to be here. I just want to emphasize again, I think this is such an important issue, whether you are somebody, you're an American, who has already left or you're considering leaving or even if you aren't even considering it. In some future where there's a possibility you leave, this is an issue you should learn about and you should pay attention to. And just by the very nature that the US is in practice, the only country that does this, that tax it citizens based on that citizenship is something that is unfair. And it's something that causes a lot of harm to Americans who are abroad. And it's something that needs to change. - But unfortunately, at the moment, I mean, if somebody were to say, "What does it mean to be an American citizen?" I think that a rational answer might be unfair and double taxation, right? - Absolutely. - Absolutely. In fact, I say that to people. (laughing) (indistinct) Because of citizenship taxation, I really, the only people in the world who by virtue of birth, if they leave the United States and move are automatically subject to double taxation, right? - Yeah, it's crazy. So like a lot of the stuff on my social media, I would say I have probably half or more of my clients are not US citizens. So I do a lot with Europeans and such. And so a lot of my content, some of it's geared towards Americans, of course, but some of it's geared towards non-Americans. And so much of what I write that's geared to that foreign audience does not apply to American citizens. So I'll always have people write and say, "Well, as an American citizen, what can I do?" And it's like, well, unfortunately, you have to play by a different set of rules than every other person in the world. And that's unfortunate. - It's almost like, you know, I hate to put it this way, but I think this is a very apt description. You ever seen an ad for those electronic fences that shock your dog, if you leave the property, they're calling it the dog fence, you ever seen that? - Yeah, exactly. - Do you think that's not a bad analogy? - It's not. Another one I'll give you that I always think back to. I think it was in the 2008 Republican presidential debate when they went around and they were asking everybody about the wall. And I'm not saying-- - Oh, sorry about-- - Around fall, it was in 2012. - Well, all right. - Pause, Brown, give it to us. - Yeah, and so they asked everybody and everybody like, "Yeah, I support the wall, I support the wall." And I'm not talking bad about the wall, but Brown Paul brought up a great point when they came to him. And he said, "No, I don't support Bill Eolle now, "because what most of you don't realize "is a wall goes two ways. "Yes, a wall can keep people out, "but it can always keep people in." And I always think back to that great vote because it's so true. You have to look at how much of this policy either unintentionally or perhaps intentionally is designed to keep people in. And having that freedom of movement, I would say is probably the most important fundamental freedom that all of us share. And anything in any way limits us in that ability of freedom of movement in something that we need to take a hard look at, and we need to change. - Yeah, I think it's exactly, you know, I will remember that debate, and I think I may even have written a blog post about it years ago, but it was the 2012, yep. A Republican, and he was absolutely right. I think what he actually said was a little more, I think he said sooner or later, they're gonna use the wall to keep us in. I think that's what he actually said. But anyway, right on, absolutely. So, you know, in conclusion, I think we both agree that this is not just a proper American to broad, this is a problem for all Americans. - Exactly, exactly, and something all Americans should pay attention to. - Yeah. - All right, well, I thank you very much. Once again, this is John Richardson speaking with you from Toronto, Canada. And today, I am speaking with jurors of Handel the Jur's Way fame. And do you wanna add, is that how people get in touch with you, or do you wanna? - Yes, so, yep, so the Jur's Way, as was previously mentioned, you can find me on most of the social media platforms, and also our website is the same thing. Thejur'sway.com, you can find me on there too. Read a little bit about me and the services that we offer. - Awesome, well, I really enjoy this conversation, and I thank you very much. - I did too. I appreciate it, thank you. - All right. - All right.
