#750 – The Expat Files: Plan B, Residency, and the Future of Expat Security

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:00] South of the border down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came up to play and now as I wonder Hello there all you expat wannabes. I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files living in Latin America The show that tells you just what it's like to live work play and or retire down here in Latin America It's a mix of the good the bad the ugly and the great and it's all right here. So let's get started. All right Here's something surprising. I'm sure you didn't know but first let's start out with something You do know to get some background on this You always hear me talking about getting your plan B going that is getting Residency in a foreign country then waiting out for a while usually five years then applying for your passport and nationality

[00:49] Then you'd have two passports It's called planting a second flag and some people take that even further and get a third passport or a third flag Cetera, etc But really a second passports enough enough for what you might be wondering well as big brother uncle Sam TSA, etc Get more and more restrictive on your travel plans. After all, they want to keep the sheep in the barn for sharing, right? Not to mention every adult in the first world commits at least three felonies a day Whether they know it or not most times they have no idea That means anytime the government wants they could show up at your door and say hey You're not going anywhere or we just locked up your bank accounts. Why because we've got a list of felonies You've committed you see that's why I always have to laugh when naive first world people say why are you being so secretive Johnny?

[01:37] Why are you trying to be anonymous? Look at me. I got nothing to hide So, why would your nice uncle Sam restrict your travel plans? Well, you might just show up on too many lists Maybe you bought too much prepper stuff or made too many unpleasant tweets about the government or your senators or your presidents Or maybe you just didn't like the way the last TSA agent probed your anus and you mouth off to him Well, you might think you're still a first-class Upstanding US citizen, but you've been committing all those felonies at least three a day And you know if you're convicted of a felony or even brought up on charges your passport and travel privileges can be revoked So then what well you're stuck in the good old US of a Indefinitely and when the feces hits the ventilator up there and the reset button gets pushed

[02:23] What are you gonna do? You got a neighborhood plan be worked out you're gonna go to uncle Harry's farm and upstate, Wisconsin Sit it out with some bearded mountain men. Maybe oh, I forgot you got ten pallets of prepper stuff in the basement Right and you're gonna hole up down there. All I could say is good luck with that though I'm not saying it's a bad idea to be a prep but most preppers at least the astute intelligent ones Sometimes while they're inventorying all the junk they've got stored in the basement They have this little epiphany kind of like that old twilight zone episode where the guy built himself a bomb shelter in the backyard Completely stuck and of course you can't be digging a giant hole in your backyard and pouring concrete without the neighbors noticing, right? And the day came when the air raid sirens went off and guess what he had his whole damn frantic

[03:10] Neighborhood pounding on his bunker door and you know There's a lot of realistic and even crazy scenarios on how it's gonna go down up in the states During the next big crisis be it a magnetic pulse from the Sun grid down and all that big terrorist attack huge malicious all-out utility hack maybe Financial crisis, whatever and when any of that stuff goes down even if you get a couple of days notice First thing the government's gonna do is restrict travel unless of course you've got a second passport Then you're also a citizen of another country, too And uncle Sam will have absolutely no control over your movements as long as you're traveling on that other passport So if your idea of a great plan B is like mine You've already visited a few Latin countries on your own got boots on the ground made some contacts

[03:57] Possibly have some land have rented apartment or even own a house or a condo Whatever and then if you have a second passport or even Residency in that foreign country at the first sniff of trouble up in the states You could head to your nice comfortable plan B location and watch the first world go down from a couple of thousand miles away So it's an absolute guarantee that when the feces hits the ventilator once again up in the states within a very short time Travel restrictions will be imposed. So if all you've got is a US passport, you're stuck Though maybe you want to be stuck you want to tough it out in the old neighborhood no matter what kind of crap comes out Maybe it'll work out. Maybe you're a great survivor But what about the women the children and the old-timers in the family? That's when denial kicks in It's a great defense mechanism

[04:42] Who wants to think about what's gonna happen to the wife kids and grandma when the reset button gets pushed? However, if you and your immediate family members have another passport you get the idea So with that second passport, you've got pretty much a get out of dodge free card though to get that process going No matter what foreign country you pick you have to get your residency first and most times You'll start out with temporary residency last a year or two Switch to permanent residency then you run your five years and go for that second passport and second nationality By the way, once you've got a second passport that doesn't affect your first passport the US government, you know allows multiple Nationalities and as far as your second passport country your new country Once you've got their passport your new country can never revoke or take your citizenship away from you unless and this is true with

[05:32] Every country even the US you commit some kind of act of treason, you know Like stealing government secrets and selling them to a foreign power Which is about as likely as running into your pastor or family priest in a gay bar Well, not that likely but I digress as usual You know, it's always preferable to start out with permanent residency bypassing temporary residency if you can Because with temporary residency you're just in a holding pattern waiting for your permanent residency to kick in and that means extra dough And an extra trip or two down to sign paperwork and stuff which prompts gringos to say to me all the time Johnny, I don't want temporary residency. I'm gonna go straight to permanent. Tell me how do I do that? And what's the difference? Well, you see in most Latin countries temporary residency exists for people that is foreigners

[06:22] Like people from the states who don't want to spend a great deal of money or invest in their new country Or perhaps they don't have money to invest with most temporary residency applications You don't have to prove your income though in most all cases. You do have to have a lawyer Expedite you through that process because you'll need him or her as what they call a Theodore Basically, he'll be your sponsor someone that's vouching for your character That's why it's almost impossible to get this stuff going on your own unless your Spanish is really good Or if you have a Latino or Latina girlfriend boyfriend or marriage partner Who is a citizen of that Latin country who can be your Theodore and hold your hand through that process? And in reality that situation is not very common except for gringos and expats Who've been living in a Latin country for a long time?

[07:08] So again with temporary residency you don't have to have proof of income now to skip all that and go right to permanent residency That makes for a tougher application process and it's getting tougher all the time That's why sometimes when you're going through the process, which does take some months You get a phone call from your Latin lawyer saying man. You got lucky you got in right under the wire They just changed this part or that part making it tougher for the next gringos coming along and you wonder how does that happen? Because every Latin country really does love to have gringos flooding in I mean we bring talent jobs and money right things that third-world countries are in very short supply of so then why are Latin American countries making their residency requirements harder and harder well a number of Latin lawyers have told me it's all about pressure from the US government aha

[07:58] And why do you think that's so again it goes back to the fact that uncle Sam does not want the sheep leave in the barn So then you might be thinking well How does the US have that much influence over the immigration policies of a sovereign Latin country well on paper? They're sovereign, but you know how the US government constantly interferes in the affairs of other countries again It's all about the money besides that it's not beyond any US president or government to force a coup and the change of regimes They've done that many times if you don't play ball with the US first the money stops, and if that doesn't work Regime change, but you knew that already great example It is this huge failed war on drugs with billions of US dollars flowing every year into South and Central American countries

[08:43] So if the US government wants to press an issue and the Latin government doesn't play ball Well, what do you think so just a little warning here? I can tell you for a fact that every Latin countries residency programs are being tightened up little by little which begs the question How in what ways well for example you might find out if you're going for residency in a country like Nicaragua Suddenly an immigration edict comes down and says that to maintain your residency You got to be in the country three months a year whereas previously there was no such time restriction at all And man does that throw a wrench into the words for so many gringos and expats Think about it if you've got permanent residency and you're waiting out that five-year period for that passport Can you afford to take three months off from whatever you're doing up in the states and come down and wait it out?

[09:30] Just to fulfill that requirement do it five years in a row oh, and here's another way Governments can stick it to you by changing the rules for example many Latin countries will let you go straight to permanent residency if you deposit let's say $50,000 in a local bank CD Your immigration lawyer has told you about that and that's the way you're gonna go only Let's say you put off your plan to start your permanent residency For a couple of months because you got to get things organized up in the states So the time comes and you're ready you wire some money down to your lawyer or you come down Yourself and go to the bank with your lawyer to get the process going and you find out it's a hundred thousand now Maybe they eliminated that stipulation all together and now you have to actually buy a property a condo house land

[10:16] Whatever for fifty or a hundred thousand dollars, and that's the new requirement see how things change now for gringles and expats Or getting pensions or Social Security as it turns out the residency programs in about half of the Latin countries Allow you to apply for permanent residency if your Social Security or pension income is only a thousand or twelve hundred bucks a month There's even one or two Latin countries. I'll let you slide through at 750 a month Then there's another group of Latin countries will only let you apply if you can prove pension Social Security or trust income of over $2,000 a month two big examples there Dominican Republic in Costa Rica Oh and some Latin countries will accept rental income to fulfill the amount now It's supposed to be lifetime monthly income from an outside source

[11:02] But you know once you've got the paperwork and how they ever gonna know if you sold a rental unit up in the states This is the third world. You know yep. There's a lot of tricks and a lot of flexibility here That's why you have to have a good Latin lawyer now for example just a few years back All you needed was a thousand bucks a month outside income to apply for permanent residency in Costa Rica now It's twenty five hundred like I said things change and sometimes even your own Latin lawyer It's no advance warning that said all you plan be gonna bees and wannabes sitting on your thrones watching Game of Thrones This is no time for procrastination Let the Latins have their money on a time you get off your butt and start that plan B while you still have options Oh, and by the way speaking of the Dominican Republic a lot of people say hey I hear they got a great cheap and easy residency program

[11:49] Well, it may be easy, but it ain't cheap for example if you hooked up with a Latin lawyer thinking about getting your residency in a place like Honduras Salvador Guatemala Nicaragua You're probably gonna have to pay your lawyer between a thousand and two thousand bucks to get the whole process going from start to finish But in the DR that Dominican Republic you're gonna pay at least 3,500 bucks about double so by far the easiest way to go directly to permanent residency is to either have social security income Pension income or a trust income that meets the requirements of your selected Latin country by the way when you're retired and getting a pension Or Social Security Latin countries deem that a pensionnado residency. You're called a pensionnado So what's the difference between that and regular permanent residency? Well, there are pluses and minuses to pensionnado residency depending on which Latin country you're applying it now

[12:39] You really have to look out with these pensionnado residencies although if you qualify in most Latin countries to let you bring a car in or you can buy a car in that country and They won't charge a VAT tax that could save you a couple thousand bucks each time and you can do that every five years And in most Latin countries if you qualify for pensionnado residency You can also bring a container full of household items from the states without paying import taxes or VAT either plus in many Latin countries You get all kinds of senior discounts, too However, when you look at our Latin countries website and it says you get senior discounts and they have a list including public Transportation discounts that would be subways chicken buses urban bus lines, etc You'll find once you get to that Latin country, not all businesses pharmacies or transportation companies are on board with that

[13:27] So what you read on embassy websites is not necessarily the way it is in real life Well, and here's another thing most people don't know with pensionnado residency You can't legally work or have a job not on the books Anyway, because they're expecting you and your pension and Social Security money Whatever to come into their country and you're gonna spend that money not earn money from within the country and spend it However, these days that's not much of an issue since most Gringo's and expats who are working or have businesses in Latin countries Are on the internet making money and really why let the local government know about that? Unless it really takes off and you absolutely have to if you do you'll have to get a tax number file taxes and pay Taxes and in most Latin countries except for maybe Costa Rica, Colombia, Brazil and Panama

[14:15] They really have no law enforcement style tax police. No, it's not even the IRS light It's more like the IRS in a coma. That's why so many Gringo's and expats say hip hip hooray However, do consult your lawyer about that stuff. He's got a business So he pays at least some taxes so he knows all the tricks and angles and will advise you and keep you out of trouble I repeat Latin governments except for the four countries I just mentioned do not have agents that'll knock on your door or come into your office and do audits That's all first world stuff. Anyway, if you got pension auto residency, you won't be able to work legally But get this for example, if your great dream was always to have an Italian restaurant little hotel bed and breakfast Whatever, even if you're a pension auto and cannot work in that country, you could still do it and you won't be breaking any local laws

[15:04] Say what? Here's how you do it. Let's say it's a restaurant you get yourself an SA corporation through your local Latin lawyer The restaurants set up in the corporate name. You have a corporate bank account corporate debit visa cards Whatever pay your staff with corporate checks, but you the owner the proprietor are not on salary You don't write yourself a check every week or every month. So how do you get paid? Well, guess who owns that corporate bank account you the possibilities are endless Is that sinking in once again? I'm not suggesting or advising you do anything illegal. Remember the name of this show is the expat files living in Latin America I'm just giving you a heads up on what a lot of gringos and expats end up doing Then there are other gringos and expats who are used to doing everything by the letter of the law

[15:53] 95% of them are Canadians Meanwhile, all the other Latin businessmen are scamming the government every which way but lose why not? They figure politicians steal from them. Well, they'll steal right back Of course, you know for Latin males tax evasion soccer binge drinking and cheating on your wife far the national past times Alright, let me give you another tip unless you absolutely have your heart set on brick-and-mortar business of some kind Restaurant B&B, whatever you really should focus on starting an internet business. Why? Well for one thing you would have to deal with the bureaucracy Employees labor regulations security inventory. It's just so much easier Plus you can generally do it from a room in your own house. So compared to a brick-and-mortar business, it's a no-brainer

[16:39] Of course, it's true brick-and-mortar businesses always have an internet component I mean there's marketing and advertising and all that and it's certainly true that the younger you are when you come down here and start That plan B the more likely it is you find a niche and get that internet business going and conversely the older you are when you come Down especially retired people or people near retirement. They're much more likely to do a brick-and-mortar thing It's all about the comfort zone Fact is if you were of that generation born with an iPhone in your hand doing things almost everything on the internet is part Of your DNA however for the older crowd used to reading real physical books newspapers and checking out ads in the yellow pages well a Lot of them have been dragged into the internet culture kicking and screaming. We all know some people like that Alright, the last thing I want to say about this pension auto residency thing and the reason why I'm bringing it up

[17:27] Let us get a letter emails about it Is that there's another catch 22 in most Latin countries and I'll repeat in most Latin countries if you have pension auto residency It will not in five years or in any length of time lead to a passport and nationality in other words in most Latin countries You will remain a pension auto in that country forever And really the point is if you're gonna have a nice solid plan b you want to end up with a second passport at one point Or other why I repeat whatever happens up in the states. It's your get out of dodge free card So if you're checking out pension auto plans, make sure they lead to a passport Now here's something strange, but very interesting Did you ever hear of the eb-5 investor visa? I don't think so

[18:17] Well, it's the united states version of a pension auto or permanent residency program based on investing in the u.s in other words, if you're a foreigner of means and have a clean police report and a half a million dollars and Approximately another hundred grand for legal fees you get automatic permanent residency in the good old u.s Of a that's permanent residency for you for qualified members of your family spouse Etc and all your kids under age 21. So what does eb-5 stand for? Employment-based fifth preference say what it says in the documentation in order to qualify for this permanent residency program That leads in 10 years to a nationality and passport Hmm, you have to invest

[19:04] From five hundred thousand to one million dollars in a business or investment that creates no fewer than 10 new American jobs But wait a minute it said at first you only need a half million to get started with this residency program It's only a half million bucks if you invest in certain targeted high unemployment areas like the rust belt in the midwest rural areas and Places like the south side of chicago. Oh vomit sold stomping grounds and detroit Hmm now i'm pointing this out to show you that it's not only latin countries that have so-called investor visas or Investment residency program the u.s does too In fact when people hear there are certain countries like dominica Nevis antigua barbuda and a few pacific island countries actually selling passports outright

[19:54] They instantly think there's some sleazy going on something that doesn't pass the smell test by the way I've been hearing that hillary clinton never passed the smell test and i'm not talking about her dastardly illegal stuff I'm talking about she just basically stinks of bo locker rooms and septic tanks Hey, i'm not making this up fbi agents white house staffers bodyguards and stuff have written and mentioned it in various books and articles But I digress man. Did I digress? So anyway, a lot of small mostly island countries will outright sell passports usually for around 150 to half a million bucks And just this last year when those big hurricanes whipped through like the one that wiped out A few of the other island countries that got hit lowered their instant passport prices quite a bit. In other words

[20:42] They're broke and these passport programs bring in a lot of money Don't you know, it's always about the money now if that sort of thing rubs you the wrong way seems kind of skanky Well, you know, it's not publicized much at all, but the u.s sells instant passports, too But it'll cost you in the neighborhood of around two to five million bucks So if you're super rich, you can set up a meeting with a u.s senator congressman or at a u.s Consulate whip out your bank statements and show them your mega balance and you'll soon find out just how easy it is to cut through months even years of residency and passport red tape Just ask that sack of dung George Soros and pus bag carlo sim Wouldn't you love to see the list of all the maggot balls that got their u.s passport that way? Which just goes to show that practically everything in this world is for sale except maybe

[21:32] Integrity though. I have my doubts about that too So talking about that plan b how far are you along on yours? Now, why do you think a couple of times a year? I hold my expat insider seminars to help a select group of people to get their plan b's on steroids Because as attendees will tell you you get the fire hose treatment for almost a solid week intense morning lectures followed by afternoon And evening boots on the ground excursions to places that will truly amaze you you'll meet people and visit places The average person just coming down by himself wouldn't even know existed But that's the whole point my upcoming expat insider seminar starts saturday, july 7th and goes through thursday, july 12th Just go to www.thenewexpat.com and click on johnny's seminar link for full sign up information

[22:21] Early bird discount details and all the information you'll need to sign up for the famous john gulf pre and post seminar tours They're terrific experiences though optional, of course Oh and don't forget at the new expat.com website You'll find out how you can kill two birds with one stone by starting your guatemalan residency process too If that's your plan b goal, it'll save you a lot of dough and an extra trip in the process Anyway, just know you can avoid all that if you come down to the seminar and do it all at once. It's a suggestion It's optional, but a very good thing to do if you can pull it off. Oh, and by the way just yesterday I had a little three hour meeting with the famous bitcoin dan and when he gets rolling He gets deep into technical territory. I can barely understand him and i'm you know a trained engineer

[23:06] But he does dole out vast quantities of pearls and gems too stuff I'm telling you you'll never read about in blogs and such on the internet and yesterday He told me two or three quite amazing things For example, he and a few other software guys uncovered a huge flaw in the ethereum blockchain He said johnny everyone's hyped up on these ethereum smart contracts and the problem is there are fatal flaws in the software He was telling me that ethereum's just got to fail though. It probably won't for a couple of years He said in most of the altcoin cases doesn't matter if they're good or bad or can do anything additional at all They're all riding the crypto wave. Most of them Solely on hype meanwhile, he said almost no one's actually gone deep into their blockchain software and checked it out

[23:53] But he has which is why he calls almost all the other alternative coins shit coins, including ethereum He says the death of ethereum is not imminent. In fact, he says this could go much much much higher And that smart contract thing a fantastic idea and it's gonna happen on some blockchains But not on ethereum's blockchain. That one's gonna blow up in their faces He also said he would never invest in a single ico He said only one in a hundred have any value at all. He's talking about icos now initial coin offerings You know the ones with clever and cute names that show up on annoying pop-up windows about every hour on the hour Remember i'm not giving investment advice here. I'm just passing along some information What one of the bitcoin and crypto gurus of all time has been telling me now, you know

[24:42] He's invited to speak at bitcoin and crypto conferences all over the world He just got invited to speak at one in the cheque republic turns out. He said there's a group of around 200 crypto millionaires and all of them have been living completely off their bitcoin and cryptocurrencies They've gone a hundred percent crypto. No fiat funny money at all. You wonder how that's possible Well, believe me it is and these guys are doing it flying around the world first class and in private jets Buying up businesses property companies islands and funding all kinds of projects and startups Most of these guys dan says are the wales people talk about though Nobody seems to know their real names and get this none of them are on flake book and twaddle with their real debts They're to a person 100 against big brother in a surveillance state and 100 libertarian

[25:31] By the way, if you think bitcoin dan's just another crypto guy with a very big brain Riddle me this do you know of or have you ever seen anyone on the internet or on any blog who said he's personally met Satoshi the mythical founder of bitcoin and the blockchain He's like the ethereal yoda of the crypto space who has more bitcoin right now than anyone yet He's never sold a single one and bitcoin dan tells me with 99 percent certainty That he met and had lunch with the guy in get this Guatemala he said that was about a year ago. Oh, there's a lot to this story And if you ever meet up with me in person ask me about it. Naturally Everyone wants to hear bitcoin dan's latest predictions He said he wouldn't doubt one bit that by the end of 2018 bitcoins at 30 000 bitcoin cash will zoom up too

[26:23] He says so will litecoin ethereum and dash, but he does not like litecoin much Nor as mentioned previously does he like ethereum, but he says they'll follow right on up with bitcoin Of course, he hates ripple. He says it's not even a crypto but litecoin. I said dan. What's wrong with litecoin? He said he looked at the underlying software of their blockchain There hasn't been anyone working on it or updating it for over a year and a half now He said with any viable currency on the blockchain There have to be some software engineers always tweaking fixing and updating the code And whereas bitcoin and ethereum and a few of the others have lots of guys working on them The fact that no one's tweaking the software on litecoin is a bad sign But dan believes in the short term is going to be a nice big second ride into the stratosphere

[27:09] For all the top 10 cryptos anyway So if you got the stomach for it fasten your seat belts and jump on the roller coaster if you dare Oh, and I forgot to mention at my july 2018 expat insider seminar bitcoin dan Once again, i'll be a featured guest and i'm trying to corral our favorite expat cryptocurrency mad miner expat oscar So start making your plans. You won't want to miss this You've been listening to the expat files living in land america If you need some help with your own plan b you can schedule a one-on-one phone call with me But first download my free plan b questionnaire at www.thenewexpat.com Better yet if you want to get your plan b going from right up there in the states Just sign up for my nine hour expat essentials course get the perfect plan b blueprint by going to the expat files.com

[27:57] Academy most famous