There’s a lot of uncertainty on the horizon. But this single strategy can protect you from corporate and government overreach, travel bans, runaway inflation, tax hikes, and whatever craziness Washington or Wall Street cooks up next…”
— Ted Baumann
Dear Reader,
A few months back, a New Yorker named Ned went to a show with friends and then to a French bistro for dinner. At the end of the evening, he reached for the bill and handed the server his credit card.
Five minutes later, that server was back, leaning over his shoulder and saying, quietly, “I’m sorry, sir, your card was declined.”
So Ned pulled out his debit card. But it was rejected, too.
His friends kindly picked up the tab. And when he got back home, Ned called the bank, only to be told his accounts had been closed due to “unexpected activity.”
He was stunned. Had he been the victim of fraud?
He scoured months’ worth of old bank statements... but found nothing unusual. Nobody at the bank would give him more information...
Without a specific charge to dispute, he couldn’t disprove whatever had raised the “unexpected activity” suspicion to start with.
Meanwhile, he had his rent to pay... utilities... groceries... he couldn’t pick up his dry cleaning or order takeout.
The thing is: Ned’s hardly alone. This sort of thing happens way more often than you’d think.
It happened to one of my colleagues here at IL a few months ago… he suddenly found himself frozen out of his accounts with no real way of getting back into them… It took him weeks to regain access!
And if not for the secret you’re going to learn about here today, he would have been unable to pay his mortgage… unable to buy groceries (or diapers for his 2-month-old baby)… unable to pay the electric bill…
The same thing happened to seniors Steve and Barb. They were treated like international criminal masterminds… even though they were just a pair of retirees in Mesa, Arizona.
They were frozen out of their three bank accounts!
It took them a lawsuit and four months to regain control… to prove their innocence for what crime? No one ever told them…
Nor are these kinds of experiences limited to banks.
Because more and more, it is becoming clear that in today’s America you don’t own your money… you don’t own your personal information… or your house… your investments… even, as you know if you’ve been an IL reader for any length of time, your passport…
You own all these assets only to the extent that some corporation—which answers more to its shareholders than it does its customers—allows you to own them. Or to the extent that the government—which answers more to those corporations than its citizens—allows you to access them.
And they are always watching you…
In 2017, financial institutions filed 1.4 million reports on “suspicious” accounts.
But of those, only 4% actually warranted follow-up inquiries from law enforcement.
It means that more than 1.3 million of those “suspicious” accounts actually belonged to regular people like you, just going about their business.
And the number of “suspicious” reports filed by financial institutions has skyrocketed since then—it was up to more than 3 million reports in 2022. Assuming the same measly 4% did, in fact, warrant flagging, that means that last year, 2.9 million “suspicious” accounts actually belonged to folks like you or me.
I’m Ted Baumann—you may recognize my name from the pages of International Living. For a decade, I advised the ultra-wealthy on their taxes, wealth, and privacy.
Today I’m going to outline an important secret anyone—not just the ultra-wealthy—can use to regain control over your money, your privacy, your right to travel freely… and lots more.
“I’m going to outline an important secret anyone—not just the ultra-wealthy—can use to regain control over your money, your privacy, your right to travel freely… and lots more.”
Here at International Living, we tell you all the time about the wonderful places around the world where you can move or spend time and enjoy a better quality of life that costs less... from Portugal to Mexico... Italy to Panama... Malaysia to Uruguay and well beyond.
But what you may not realize is that there are plenty of other benefits to be gained by creating a more international life for yourself.
There are freedoms and protections—and even opportunities—out there beyond America’s borders…
Though typically known only to expats—you can use many of them even if you never leave the U.S. at all.
The most powerful of these is the secret I’m going to share today.
And again, it isn’t just about safeguarding yourself from your bank.
It’s about building a life where YOU set the rules on where and when you can access your money… how much you pay in tax… where you can live and travel…
It’s about creating a life where YOU are in control of the types of investments you can make… the amount of income you can earn (including on your savings account)… the type of retirement program you can access (you’re not just limited to U.S. Social Security)…
I’m talking about a life where YOU have a say in how much you pay for healthcare (and what standard of care you get)… what kind of legacy you leave behind for you kids… and lots more…
That’s my goal today—to show you exactly how you can secure your assets, grow your wealth, and protect your future... while you enjoy the kind of international, travel-filled life you’re looking for.
I spent a decade showing the ultra-wealthy how to take smart advantage of the strategies and the tools that I’ll tell you about here today.
You don’t need to have hundreds of millions in the bank to make them work for you.
You just need the knowledge... you need to educate yourself. Because the elite who have this information and use it... they aren’t going to give it to you.
When you look beyond our borders, you’ll find tools and techniques that can help you create a world for yourself where you have options and choices you don’t have at home.
A world that feels safe and secure and preserves the values that are important to you.
And you can lead a jet-set life, too...
Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson have a home on the Greek island of Antiparos and hold Greek citizenship and passports.
You could have a place in Greece. You can find properties that are move-in-ready for under €120,000... and right now Greece’s Golden Visa can open the door for you to permanent residency (with a path to an EU passport) with an investment from just investment from just €250,000.
Samuel L. Jackson traced his heritage back to the country of Gabon and got citizenship there. Now, Gabon may not be on your short list of retirement options... but you may be eligible for a passport through your ancestors and not even realize it.
Experts estimate that as much as 40% of the American population could be eligible for an E.U. passport. That’s 136 million people who could have an EU passport coming to them! In countries like Italy, Ireland, and Poland, you could pursue citizenship if a grandparent or great grandparent was from there.
Owning real estate abroad has that jet-set appeal, no question...
Sting keeps a villa in Tuscany... Bill Gates owns a 314-acre private island in Belize... George Lucas produces wine at his Chateau Margui in Var, France.
But it isn’t just the lifestyle that makes owning abroad attractive. Real estate is a hard asset, and it can hand you a way to store wealth outside the States, outside the dollar, outside stocks and bonds...
That makes it a useful tool... particularly if we see a downturn at home.
And there’s a good chance we will...
“When you look beyond our borders, you’ll find tools and techniques that can help you create a world for yourself where you have options and choices you don’t have at home.
“A world that feels safe and secure and preserves the values that are important to you.”
We are, as the saying goes, “living in interesting times...”
Now, as an American, I feel great love and fondness for the country of my birth. I grew up on Maryland’s eastern shore. My father served in Congress in Washington.
And while I’ve recently moved back to South Africa—where my wife is from, and where I went to university and spent three decades—we’d been in Atlanta for the last 14 years.
A large part of the reason we moved back to South Africa was simply because our teenage daughter wanted to go to school here. And we missed our friends and family and the good quality of life we enjoy in Cape Town...
But it was more than that. I’m an economist and historian by training, and I see America changing... in some worrisome ways...
For much of our nation’s history, the political and social pendulum would swing one way and then back the other.
The conformity of the 1950s was followed by the beatnik era of the 60s. Jimmy Carter was followed by Ronald Reagan.
Along the way we had plenty to disagree about... but Americans still seemed capable of civil discourse. We could agree to disagree.
Today, though, the atmosphere feels completely different—like we have two Americas: red and blue.
It’s not an exaggeration to say they don’t inhabit the same reality.
Platforms like Facebook and Twitter—now X—built their business models around algorithms that encourage people to consume more of the ideology they already prefer.
So people live in these social-media echo chambers where it’s easy to discourage civil discourse and spread disinformation.
And the way we report and consume the news today just makes the situation worse.
Newsrooms have to chase “clicks” to get eyeballs on their stories, and to do it they throw up headlines that reinforce ideology instead of providing readers a more objective takeaway. It serves to push folks even further apart.
And in that gulf, that’s where extremism germinates. That’s bad in and of itself.
But it puts the government on “terrorist lookout,” so they start watching for crazies. Only to find them... they’re watching everybody—including you and me. That sure feels like an overreach.
A director for the Center for Democracy and Technology’s Security and Surveillance Project put it this way:
“It turns out that people dismissed as paranoid because they thought Big Brother was watching everything they say on social media were not paranoid after all.”
So we’ve got this social fracturing... and our right to privacy deteriorating in the face of it...
The systems aren’t serving the people anymore the way they’re supposed to.
We see it reflected in the banking situation I already talked about. The banks doing those sweeps for “suspicious” accounts—that’s to cover their back sides in case there’s nefarious activity going on. They’re doing that to protect their shareholders, themselves—not you.
And we see this all around us...
You know, we’d all like to think the U.S. economy can just keep trundling along, but it seems highly unlikely that it will.
Wall Street is running the show, and that’s problematic. The “financial tail is wagging the economic dog” as one analyst put it.
You need only consider the financial crash in 2008, when 23 million people lost their jobs, 9.3 million lost their healthcare, and a million lost their homes.
It was big banks’ handling of mortgage-backed securities that caused the crisis—executives looking for hefty profits (and finding them), never mind the risk. But it was American workers who lost their savings when it all blew up...
These days we’re seeing that same pattern repeat. Private equity firms on Wall Street are taking over companies to pump up corporate profits (and line their own pockets). But they do it by radically cutting costs, slashing benefits, and firing workers. They extract their gains, but they leave these carcasses on Main Street. It’s the American workers and the small-business suppliers and the communities where they live that lose.
Then you layer in the fact that inflation spiked, and for the middle class, prices increased faster than their income. The average person cannot get ahead these days...
That’s bad news for all of us. When the middle class goes... so goes the empire...
I’m sure—like me—you sense the... fragility around us today.
It worries me, because I think Hyman Minsky was on to something when he argued that stability breeds instability.
Minksy was an economist at Washington University in St. Louis who made the case 40 years ago that economies were inherently unstable, and that they sowed the seeds of their own destruction.
He argued that there would be stability, fragility, and then... suddenly, a crisis.
It was, he said, because when things are stable, everything feels safe. So people start to take risks. And for a while, the risk-taking works.
People are making money. And the bankers and traders and other financiers start to think that this high-risk, high-reward situation is the new normal. So they take even more risks.
It’s a positive boom... and it feels like it won’t ever end. Until that excessive risk-taking overheats. Market insiders take their profits, but then people start to panic, and the economy collapses.
“Stability breeds instability. And we see it not only in the economy—but across our social structures and our politics, too. I’m talking about these unexpected events that seem to lurch us further toward uncertainty and crisis...”
That’s the “Minsky Moment.”
Stability breeds instability.
The boom of the roaring 20’s ended with the stock market crash in 1929.
The prosperity we enjoyed in the mid-1990s: low inflation, low unemployment, a surging stock market... that fed the dot-com bubble and bust.
In the mid-2000s, the economy was running high. Easy credit had people buying homes they couldn’t really afford. Then all those subprime mortgages took it crashing down in 2008.
You have to wonder if we’re not inching up on a “Minsky Moment” now.
We saw three banks fail this year—three banks that held more assets than the 25 banks that collapsed in 2008 at the height of the financial crisis.
That didn’t bring the whole economy down—because the government stepped in to ensure it didn’t—but surely, it’s an indication of the fragility Minsky identified.
And we see it not only in the economy—but across our social structures and our politics, too. I’m talking about these unexpected events that seem to lurch us further toward uncertainty and crisis...
I mean, who would have predicted that a global pandemic would kill millions of people, shut borders, and upend the world’s economy?
How many folks thought a ground war would be raging in Europe in 2023?
High inflation has been a shocker over the last two years. The typical American household spent $709 more in July 2023 than they did two years ago to buy the same goods and services.
“You can create options for yourself and your family so you’re not at the mercy of a system when it isn’t working for you anymore.
“And you don’t have to decamp to another country to make use of overseas strategies that can provide you options and protection—unless you want to. You can get started from right there at home. “
Consider the recent brinksmanship in Congress over the debt ceiling... whatever side you may come down on politically, I think I’m safe in saying the whole situation undermined confidence in our political and financial systems.
And the thing is, when the systems we rely on start to falter, the folks who control them begin to devise ways to keep us in them.
We’re already seeing this in the financial sector with capital controls.
In the “land of the free,” we aren’t really free to move our own money around any way or anywhere we want to.
If you’ve been a member of International Living for any length of time, you probably know that Uncle Sam has stringent reporting rules in place to ensure the government collects every tax dollar it’s due... whether your funds are in the U.S. or outside it.
We’re likely to see this sort of grab for control in other areas too.
In fact, we already are—just think about the surveillance of your social media. Or the fact that during the height of the pandemic, the U.S. closed its borders. Neither leaves you in control of your personal freedoms...
Stability breeds instability. But you can put a Plan B in place for yourself.
You can create options for yourself and your family so you’re not at the mercy of a system when it isn’t working for you anymore.
The most obvious way, of course, is one we talk about all the time at International Living... take yourself overseas. Plant yourself in a place where the weather suits you, the surroundings make you smile, and the lower cost of living means you can live rich on a middle-class salary.
But you don’t have to decamp to another country to make use of overseas strategies that can provide you options and protection—unless you want to. You can get started from right there at home.
For instance, when you hold hard assets overseas in the right way—assets like real estate, as I mentioned, and physical gold or other metals—you don’t need to report that to the IRS. And that gives you a way to move funds outside the stock market, outside the dollar...
When you have a bank account abroad, you have a way to hold money outside our banking system. (And hey, that gives you a failsafe if one day you wake up and your accounts are frozen.) But beyond that, it can give you access to investment options you don’t have in the U.S.
With a second passport, you could have the freedom to travel and move—even if, like during the pandemic, our borders close...
In the States, the average savings account offers 0.53% interest. A 1-year CD in the U.S. will pay out maybe 5.5%. But did you know there’s a country where you can get a 1-year CD that pays out as much as 9.5% (and it’s insured)?
When times get tough, governments start looking at ways to raise funds... and the obvious way is through higher taxes... yet if you have your affairs arranged the right way abroad, you can slash your tax rate.
I have a colleague who just moved to Portugal and has sorted it out so he’ll pay a mere 15% global tax rate—and he says when it all shakes out, it’s probably going to be closer to 10% or 12%. Now, he’s still working and self-employed.
But the point is: You can protect yourself overseas in ways you can’t at home.
You can give yourself options. Work-arounds. An escape hatch.
So you can protect yourself, your wealth, your family, and your future... no matter what happens.
Take my situation, for instance. I hold dual citizenship in the U.S. and in South Africa. And that second passport has served me well over the years...
I've traveled visa-free to countries where American passport holders require one.
Because I'm a citizen of this second country, I can work from here. That qualifies me for a huge break on my U.S. taxes…
My daughter is eligible for higher education at a tiny fraction of what she would pay in the U.S. The same goes for healthcare.
I have much more control over my personal privacy. I have my second home overseas and hold other hard assets that don’t need to be reported to Uncle Sam. On top of that, privacy laws are stricter in South Africa—and many other countries—than they are in the U.S., which means I'm much less vulnerable to hacking or having my personal information stolen from a big tech company.
I put my Plan B into action... and you could, too.
It’s easier, faster, and less expensive than you probably think.
I’ve been researching and writing about global diversification, wealth protection, and international investment for the last decade. I’ve published three books and numerous journal articles on the subject.
Media groups like Forbes, Fortune, Fox Business, and Barron’s have interviewed me on these topics. I’ve travelled to over 90 countries in my career. And as I mentioned earlier, I spent years advising the ultra-wealthy on how to structure their own lives internationally to help them and their families enjoy the real freedom a well-planned global life delivers.
“If you diversify only your brokerage account and you diversify only your finances the way most people would... you’re still lashed to the United States. And you’re vulnerable.
“If the fortunes of the U.S. change—well, then, you’ll go down with the ship. The idea is to get yourself a life raft... “
But you don’t need to have tens of millions in the bank to take advantage of the strategies I’d like to show you.
I’ve created a special blueprint to introduce you to the kinds of overseas opportunities that are out there and to show you how you can make them work for you.
I call it my Global Citizen Prosperity Blueprint—because that, ultimately, is the big benefit: It gives you the tools you need to prosper.
And I’ve written up a full gameplan for you that I’d like to share.
At its core, my Global Citizen Prosperity Blueprint is all about diversification. It’s about minimizing risk and maximizing wealth, safety, and freedom.
If you are like most folks, you probably understand the need to diversify your financial portfolio.
You spread your money around to limit your exposure to one type of asset. You want to reduce the impact of market volatility on your portfolio over time.
Now for most folks, that means a balance of domestic stocks, bonds, maybe some money-market funds, real estate funds, commodity-focused funds.
What I’m talking about here—the global diversification I want to show you—it’s something different.
Because if you diversify only your brokerage account and you diversify only your finances the way most people would... you’re still lashed to the United States. And you’re vulnerable.
And if the fortunes of the U.S. change—well, then, you’ll go down with the ship.
The idea is to get yourself a life raft...
Lots of people are doing it right now...
Business Insider reports: “America is losing its millionaires... A key impetus for this change has been disillusioned American millionaires looking overseas for opportunities.”
What’s driving them away? Henley & Partners, a consulting firm, reports that it’s...
They’re chasing the American Dream outside the United States... and they’re going to countries like Portugal, Malta, Spain, Panama, Greece, and Italy...
The ultra-wealthy are on the move... and you could follow in their footsteps.
You do that by diversifying.
Not just across stocks and bonds, but across borders and currencies... and across assets, too... across residencies and citizenships...
So that might mean you get a second passport... so that you always have a place to escape to where you can stay as long as you like. You do it in a place you enjoy, and you can live on permanent vacation.
It might mean investing in a property in another country—perhaps in another currency—so you have a place you could rent out for income and have the flexibility to stay in whenever the urge strikes. And that place might—or might not—be in the country your second passport is from.
It might mean holding physical gold in yet another jurisdiction... a way to hedge against a downturn in the stock market and also against a declining dollar.
It might mean having residency in a place where the taxes are low so you can keep more of what you earn...
It might mean having a bank account—or more than one—overseas where you can keep funds in case, for example, your bank freezes your account without telling you.
“Diversification might mean you get a second passport... or invest in property in another country... or hold physical gold... or have residency where taxes are low... or have a bank account overseas... or some combination of all those things.”
Diversification this way looks different for everybody. Everybody has their own priorities and preferences, needs and wants.
And this stuff can be complicated. I mean, that’s why the uber-wealthy pay advisors to figure it all out for them.
It’s been called the “wealth defense industry.”
But you don’t need to be a billionaire for this sort of global diversification to make sense.
The average person doesn’t do this... not because he wouldn’t benefit... but because he doesn’t know he should be. He wouldn’t even know where to start.
The guys providing services as part of the “wealth defense industry” charge tens of thousands of dollars for their guidance. And they don’t want to do the work for any less. So they don’t offer it to “regular” people.
From their point of view, if they can charge a billionaire $50,000 or $100,000 for their advice, why would they bother creating a package for you at one-tenth the price? It’s not worth their while.
I worked in that industry for a long time. And—I’ll be frank—I’m ready to share these ideas with people who can really use them. People who deserve to use them.
I can show you the lay of the land, help you understand where the opportunities are, and give you the guidance and insight you need to put a plan in place for yourself.
There’s always opportunity someplace in the world. And I’ll show you how to position yourself so you’re one of the people taking smart advantage of it.
If you don’t, you can be sure other people will... and there’s no reason to be left behind. This is so much more accessible than most people realize.
Let me give you an example of how this can work...
Take John, a model International Living member. He and his wife Amy are retiring in the next year and interested in spending time in Europe. They can swing a budget of around $5,000 a month. He wants to minimize their taxes as much as possible. He’s worried, too, about inflation and the U.S. economy and wouldn’t mind parking some cash outside the States.
Now, that monthly budget gives them enough to live comfortably in almost any of the countries we write about regularly at International Living. But John and Amy decide Portugal is for them... in part because they like the weather and the prices, but also because there’s a potential path to citizenship there for them—and they like the idea of the long-term flexibility a second passport would provide them.
They don’t have European ancestors through which they might access a second passport (though you might), so they start by getting a residency visa for Portugal that can give them an eventual path to citizenship. And it’s pretty flexible. They have to be in Portugal for 183 days in a year, but that leaves them plenty of time to travel should they want to. And it’s renewable.
When John and Amy first arrived in Portugal, they registered as nonhabitual residents (NHR) for tax purposes. That entitled them to pay no tax on their non-Portuguese income for 10 years (including their pension income, because that has already been taxed by Uncle Sam, and Portugal and the U.S. have a treaty that prevents double taxation).
Eventually, they decide to apply for Portuguese citizenship. That ensures they have permanent rights to remain in the country, no matter what happens. And they have forever access to the EU.
John and Amy's tax strategy saves them a great deal of money, on top of the savings they get from living in a country with a much lower cost of living than the U.S.
After a few years, they have quite a lot saved up. But, concerned about financial security Stateside, they want to bring some of that to Europe. Fortunately, as legal residents of the European Union, they are entitled to banking facilities in countries like Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein, which are among the safest financial sectors in Europe.
Nevertheless, because they are U.S. citizens, they decide to open a brokerage account with a company in Zürich that specializes in services to Americans.
This allows them to invest money in European stock markets that would otherwise be inaccessible. And it allows them to diversify their cash holdings into currencies other than the U.S. dollar. That gives them an effective hedge against the long-term decline of the dollar and the increasing instability of U.S. government finances.
They can also put some of their funds into physical gold stored in vaults in those countries—which provides a further hedge.
“In my book, wealth is anything that gives you options... The ability to spend time where you like, when you like... the ability to choose assets and opportunities you wouldn’t necessarily know about or have access to if you were solely focused on the U.S. ...”
That flexibility... that choice that John and Amy can create for themselves... that’s a form of wealth.
In my book, wealth is anything that gives you options.
The ability to spend time where you like, when you like... the ability to choose assets and opportunities you wouldn’t necessarily know about or have access to if you were solely focused on the U.S. ...
It’s more than a “life raft,” really. It’s a life full of freedom and flexibility. A rich life... a life where you maintain control over your money, your privacy, your right to travel freely… and lots more.
And I want to show you the tools you have at your disposal to put exactly that sort of life together for yourself...
When you’re resident in a place where the cost of living is low and the quality of life is high, you can afford to relax. You can slow down... and enjoy life.
If you’re a beach person, you could live within an easy walk of the sand... take a stroll down to watch the sunset each evening... in the right spots overseas, you can easily afford to do that.
In the U.S. to live within a five- or 10-minute walk of the beach in California—you’d be hard-pressed to find anything under $1 million.
But in a place like Costa Rica, you can buy a 2-bedroom proper beachfront condo in an upscale building with granite countertops and open floor plan and a beautiful pool in the complex for $375,000. I mean, that’s about a third—or less—what something comparable would cost you in California.
And when you’re living in a place like Costa Rica—it’s not just real estate that costs less.
You can get private health insurance for $2,600 to $3,000 a year.
You can eat out at a local place—fish tacos and a couple of beers—and that’ll set you back around $15 for two.
What this means is that you’re spending so much less on stuff you HAVE to spend it on... it frees up funds to spend on things you’d LIKE to spend on.
It means, for instance, you can afford to travel more—and better.
You could take the money you save by being resident in a low-cost haven... and use it to buy a condo in another country that you rent out at a profit when you’re not there and which you can then travel to and stay in (free—because it’s yours) a few weeks or months a year.
And when you live in a place where the cost of living is so low, higher prices that can come with inflation pose less of a challenge. Because even if prices go up 10%... that $15 lunch for two is now $16.50. It’s STILL much less than you’d be paying at home for something comparable.
You see where I’m going with this. Once you untether yourself from the U.S.—from what most people are doing—you begin to see how many interesting, and even lucrative, options you have overseas.
And you don’t need to be a billionaire to live this way. You just need to know the secrets and the strategies... and how to best combine them in your world so they work for you.
“Once you untether yourself from the U.S.—from what most people are doing—you begin to see how many interesting, and even lucrative, options you have overseas.
“My Global Citizen Prosperity Blueprint lays out for you the things you need to think about, the best options you have, it gives you the pluses and the minuses. And the idea is that you gain perspective, and context, and confidence.”
And that means figuring out how you can do this and minimize your taxes, for example.
Or how you can do it and maybe buy something smart and well-valued now... so that it can serve your longer-term plan later.
Or how you can do this and put yourself on a comfortable timeline to secure a second passport.
I know that there are lots of questions to answer. Lots of moving parts. And it can feel like a wrong step in one area will have unforeseen consequences in another.
You’re not wrong in that thinking. You DO need to sort through your options and mark a path that makes good sense for you.
But that’s what my Global Citizen Prosperity Blueprint is designed to help you with... because it lays out for you the things you need to think about, the best options you have, it gives you the pluses and the minuses. And the idea is that you gain perspective, and context, and confidence.
You’ll know where the goal posts are. You’ll know what constitutes a foul. You’ll know what questions to ask... and what strategies will fit your goals and what won’t.
And you’ll see... it’s all a lot more doable than it might appear from the outside.
You know, when covid swept across the world, countries closed borders and hunkered down. You couldn’t get in or out of the United States... your U.S. passport didn’t do you a lick of good.
But, if you had a passport from another country, that was your “get out of jail free” card. You could use it to go to your other home. You had an escape route. I certainly had one, thanks to my second passport.
Freedom of movement in and out of the U.S.—when it’s not necessarily guaranteed for Americans holding only U.S. passports—is one benefit of holding a second one.
But there are more reasons...
A second passport can open the door to more opportunities for global investing, banking, residence, and doing business. As I mentioned before, thanks to increased IRS scrutiny and reporting requirements, many global financial institutions shy away from opening accounts for U.S. citizens—problems you won’t encounter with the proper second passport.
It gives you options if your current passport is ever restricted or revoked. As I mentioned before, your U.S. passport doesn’t actually belong to you—and it can be cancelled. It happens all the time. In fact, in one recent year—362,000 passports were revoked or denied.
And your passport can be revoked if you have a legally enforceable tax liability of $52,000 or more—including tax, penalties, and interest. Or if you owe $2,500 or more in child support. So having another one can be useful.
Plus, as we’ve discussed already, a second passport gives you the legal right to live and work in another country. An EU passport is particularly valuable, giving you the legal right to live and work in, as of now, 27 member countries.
And the best news is that you may well qualify for a second passport already and not even realize it.
I’ll help you figure it out. The first resource my Global Citizen Prosperity Blueprint unlocks for you is my Passport Qualifier.
In just a minute, I’ll tell you how you can gain immediate access to this user-friendly tool.
I’ve created it to help you narrow down your options so you can begin to home in on the passport that would make the most sense for you, given your priorities, preferences, funds, timeline, and more.
With my Qualifier you get a detailed comparison of 54 countries you might want to consider.
And for each one you can see at a glance—where it is, what programs it has in place (for example, citizenship by investment or by ancestry), how quick the process is, how expensive it is, and so on.
Other people have created passport indices—but they tend to be rankings of every passport in the world, and they tend to rank them based, ultimately, on a single factor, like the number of countries that passport gives you access to.
By that measure, Japan usually ranks at the top or close to it. But it’s not really practical to get a Japanese passport—not for most people. You must speak Japanese, for one... and knowing our International Living audience, I know Japan—while a great place to visit—is not at the top of most people’s lists of retirement havens. And if you get one, you have to renounce your current citizenship. So that’s not really that helpful a measure for you.
By contrast, my Global Citizen Passport Qualifier is an expert-informed tool that is actually useful for somebody from the U.S. or Canada who wants to figure out what passports might make the most sense for them and be realistic options.
It’s searchable and that means you can look through it, changing your priorities. This is not like any other passport tool out there. That’s because I created my Passport Qualifier with you in mind. You don’t need data on every passport on the planet.
What you need is a short list of places you should be investigating. You need guidance culling through the best options and insights about which passports are good for which things.
And you need an expert take: This option is good if you’re still working and want to lower your taxes... or this one is good if speed in acquiring a passport is more important to you than low-cost... or this one is good if you want access to Europe but you don’t have any ancestry claim, and so on.
In other words: My Passport Qualifier will help you understand what your best options are, and you’ll be able to compare and contrast them easily and clearly so you can begin to put a plan of action together for yourself.
But the Passport Qualifier is just the start of what you’ll get with my Global Citizen Prosperity Blueprint.
All you have to do is say, YES, Ted to this special opportunity today... and I’ll give you immediate access to my Passport Qualifier PLUS a whole collection of special research reports designed to help you understand quickly where in the world the best opportunities are for you today...
Because a second passport can open the door for you to much greater flexibility and freedom in where you can live, earn, and travel—I’m including two detailed reports about passports that I created specifically as companion guides to the Passport Qualifier.
The first is The 9 Easiest Passports to Get... and How to Know Which One is Right for You.
To be clear, the ideal second citizenship for anyone depends on their personal preferences and circumstances.
But the nine countries you’ll find detailed in this first report do offer unusually easy routes to a second passport.
In one, for instance, you can fly in, file an application for permanent residence, stay in the country while it is being processed, and then once you’ve been approved... you can apply for citizenship as quickly as three years later (for couples) or five years later (for singles).
If time is of the essence, and you want a passport fast, that’s possible, too—and I’ll tell you where in 5 Countries with Quick Paths to Citizenship. They’re all places where you don’t have to make a big investment to get a passport.
One of them I’m particularly fond of. The locals speak English, and the place has a reputation as a laid-back and welcoming country with lots of wide-open spaces, great beaches, and plenty for outdoorsy types to do.
When you have a bank account overseas, you gain a measure of security. If things go south at home, you have some funds in an outpost.
And a foreign account can open the door for you to investment opportunities you can’t access at home.
One of my colleagues likes to tell a story about how he had a tech play he wanted to make—but the only reason he was able to do it was because he’s resident in Europe and he could use a local account.
It feels counter-intuitive, I know, because we always think of America as being at the forefront in tech. But in many places overseas, banking itself is more sophisticated than what we’re used to.
Try finding an account in the United States at a local bank or credit union—even at a banking giant—that gives you easy access to a multicurrency account online or through a smartphone banking app. Not typical.
But my colleague, Jeff Opdyke, says by way of example, that in his bank accounts in Prague, he can pop into his bank app, and with a click or two, add a foreign currency sub-account to his main account. It means that his primary bank account can hold Czech crowns, euros, dollars, Norwegian krone... and he can move those currencies back and forth easily and within seconds.
Now, opening a bank account abroad can be a little complicated—because the U.S. requires onerous reporting rules, and foreign banks don’t want to deal with them so often they refuse American customers. But in my report Why You Should Open a Foreign Bank Account and 6 Ways to Do It—I show you the ropes.
Buying real estate locally will swing a bank’s door wide open...
And I’ll tell you about an under-the-radar way into a Swiss account. You’ve probably heard of UBS and Credit Suisse... but I doubt you’ve heard of this option.
In some places, just showing up and asking to open an account can work—I’ll tell you where, what to say, and what to bring with you...
And that’s just for starters.
Tax savings can be another boon when you’re abroad. But you have to know how to work the system. As part of my Global Citizen Prosperity Blueprint, I’ll show you...
Liability for U.S. federal income tax is like original sin: You’re born with it.
Americans pay tax on their worldwide income, and your physical presence in the U.S. is not necessary—you’re still taxed. (Eritrea is the only other country on the planet that does it that way.)
But, there are a couple of ways—both perfectly legal—that you can get around paying U.S. income tax.
I’ve long made use of one of them...
In fact, I didn’t pay a cent in U.S. income tax for over 20 years. And I’m not planning to pay any this year, either.
That’s because I take advantage of a special rule written right into the tax code—and available to anyone—that allows me to pay zero U.S. income tax on the first $120,000 I earn. And it’s double that for a family filing jointly, like mine.
In my report, Two Ways to Avoid Federal Income Tax, I explain exactly how it works.
Unlike lots of U.S. tax rules, this one is not, in fact, that complicated. Though you do need to be living abroad to make this work for you.
You can take advantage of this provision as long as your income is earned outside the U.S. It doesn’t matter if you work for a U.S. company or not. If you do the work abroad, your income can qualify.
For example, if you receive your income while working in France, the income is from a foreign source, even if it’s paid directly to your bank account in the United States and your employer is in New York City.
The not-so-good news is that it must be “earned” income. The IRS explicitly states that can be a salary, commissions, tips, bonuses, and professional fees. So not dividends or interest or Social Security...
Still, this can be a very useful way to lower your taxes when you move overseas. And I explain all the particulars in Two Ways to Avoid Federal Income Tax.
I should say, all of the strategies and recommendations that make up my Global Citizen Prosperity Blueprint are 100% legal. Yes, I can show you how to minimize your taxes—but it’s using rules that are in place for folks who live international lives.
I don’t think anybody should pay more tax than they’re obliged to. And I’ll show you how—by living abroad—you can pay much less than you would at home.
That’s not all. There’s actually a place on the planet where you do not, in fact, have to file a U.S. income tax return at all... and because the local government is on a mission to romance folks like you into coming there—so you can bring your money and spend it in the local economy—they’re making it worth your while.
In addition to pristine white sand beaches, turquoise waters, and warm, sunny weather year-round, this island escape offers incredibly attractive tax rates if you earn at least 80% of your income from self-employed services like consulting.
The marginal tax rate is just 6% up to $100,000 in earnings... it’s 10% if you earn from $300,001-$400,000...
I give you all the details in Two Ways to Avoid Federal Income Tax...
And I’m not done yet.
That’s because there are lots of opportunities for you to mine overseas, and I want to make sure that right away, you have a sense for the lay of the land... for the possibilities out there.
The ultra-wealthy... they are already taking advantage of all these strategies, and they’re building freedom and prosperity into their lifestyles.
They are living in one place, sometimes resident in another. They have homes they can visit and rent out at a profit when they’re not there. They have a global investing strategy that helps ensure that no matter what happens back home, they’re going to be just fine.
And that holistic, diversified, international approach to life is something they’re able to pass along to their heirs... together with their wealth.
And look...so can you. And you can begin to put your international strategy in place from right there at home...
You could call this wealth-protecting strategy a maximum-security cell for your wealth... and you can put it in place without going overseas.
Let me explain.
Back in November 2013, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) floated the idea of a “one-off wealth tax” to help pay off the debts of heavily-indebted developed countries—like the U.S., Japan, and much of Europe. Such a tax had already been used earlier that year in Cyprus.
It wasn’t just the IMF, either: The European Union, the German Bundesbank, and the Bank of England had all been dropping hints that a wealth tax could be coming soon.
Ideally (for government, anyway), a “wealth tax” would be imposed on households’ net worth—including their shareholdings and fixed assets such as real estate—but that's really a can of worms, given the different ways people hold assets.
So the most likely scenario is a levy on bank balances, as in Cyprus. Banks would simply be instructed to deduct a certain percentage of the balance—say, 10%—of each savings, checking, or deposit account... and transfer it to the government or central bank.
It may sounds far-fetched—but I wouldn’t put it past a severely cash-strapped government in a time of crisis. It’s been done before...
So, what can you do to protect against this sort of seizure? Well, you want to make your assets invisible. And you can effectively do that when you convert your money to physical wealth in the form of gold or other precious metals (or gemstones, or collectible stamps, or the like) and store it offshore in a secure vault.
The trick, though, is to make sure that vault is a non-bank secure facility—where your assets won’t be reportable to Uncle Sam—and to hold them in your own name.
In Wealth Protection: Overseas Assets You Can Own from Home, I walk you through the perfectly legal specifics and show you how to find reputable facilities overseas.
It isn’t just surgeons that are at high risk for lawsuits... so are accountants, chefs, public servants, real estate agents, and even lawyers. If you worry that your assets could come under attack, a smart way to protect yourself is to put some of them in structures that are out of reach.
In this report, I’ll tell you about a specific kind of trust—located in a non-U.S. jurisdiction—that effectively renders your funds untouchable since local courts in that country refuse to enforce U.S. rulings. Cases must be retried and proven again in a court on the ground.
I’ll explain how this works and a place to go where assets of as little as $100,000 can be protected this way.
Did you know you can roll a mainstream IRA into an offshore-friendly IRA for less than $1,000? It can make sense to do this since IRAs held by U.S. custodians usually limit you to trading assets that are U.S. based.
Set up a different sort of IRA, though, and you can hold inside it gold, real estate, coins, and more. In Wealth Protection: Overseas Assets You Can Own from Home I’ll explain what you need to know and who you need to talk to.
Real estate overseas, as I’ve mentioned already, can offer a great store of wealth and—if you buy right—not only provide potential appreciation gains and income, but also a place you could actually go and enjoy.
In this report, I’ve included a special dispatch from my colleague, Ronan McMahon of Real Estate Trend Alert, about how you can live anywhere for free. You’ll discover how you can use real estate to arrange your life so you live on permanent vacation...
You have lots of options overseas—ways you can improve your life, safeguard your hard-earned money, grow your wealth, and set yourself and your family up for a life that will amaze you.
But I’d be lying if I said there were no bureaucratic hoops to navigate along the way.
In Know Before You Go: Three Ways to Avoid Financial Trouble When You Move Abroad, I’ve pulled together my most important “be prepared” guidance for you.
You don’t want to find yourself on the wrong side of the U.S. government when it comes to taxes and banking. The penalties are too stiff to make taking a risk worthwhile.
And the government isn’t the only source of potential financial trouble (I bring you back to those closed bank accounts).
So in this report, I’ll give you my two bits on—
All of these resources together—my full Global Citizen Prosperity Blueprint—is yours as part of a new research service I’m launching for International Living members called Global Citizen.
With it, I’ll show you how you can arrange your life so that—no matter what happens—you can stay above the fray.
So you can seek out and take advantage of opportunity all around the world—opportunity you may not even know exists today...
...but at the same time, position yourself defensively—so you’re protected from the unexpected.
Each month, I’ll send you via email a private Monthly Report. And inside I’ll take you on a deep dive to explore an opportunity you should know about.
We’ll cover a broad range of topics—exactly the sort of solutions those advisors to the ultra-wealthy are showing their clients. I’ll talk about ideas and strategies you could use...
As I said, each month, we’ll explore a topic that you should be thinking about—a strategy or a resource that will help you create a more international life for yourself.
So that you’re taking advantage of opportunity abroad to make money, save money, and protect your freedoms, too.
Plus, I’ll sit down (sometimes just me, often with an outside expert) and bring you a video opportunity report each month as well.
I’ll be using these Insider Perspectives videos as a way to further explore some of the nuances of each month’s opportunity. And bring you fresh ideas, too.
For instance, coming up I’ll tell you about a clever back door to a bank account in New Zealand—when you don’t live there.
I have a friend and colleague in New Zealand who I’ve worked with many times over the years. I’ll bring him on to share some timely insights, ask him some questions, and generally make sure you gain a well-rounded understanding of this opportunity so you can decide if it’s something that would make sense for you—or not.
Because I’ve been researching and writing about global opportunities for so many years, I have an extensive network of contacts in this “wealth defense industry” all around the world.
So I’ll be tapping those connections to bring you their expertise, too.
It could be an attorney in Portugal who can talk about the recent changes to the Golden Visa rules and what other alternatives might make sense for you.
Or it could be an expert in international expat taxes who can pull back the curtain for you and talk about the best ways to handle, say, passive income—both on the U.S. and foreign-tax sides.
With my Insider Perspectives, I’ll connect you to folks with all kinds of expertise who can help you find ways to diversify your life internationally. We’ll talk about things like—
These are the kinds of topics the ultra-wealthy with their family offices explore to help them manage their affairs.
I’ll bring them to you through my monthly Insider Perspectives.
And that’s not all.
While there are certain core strategies that always make sense when you set out to create a more international life, you don’t implement them in a vacuum.
You live in the real world, and that world is always changing.
Rules change. Laws change. The geopolitical landscape changes. I take it as my responsibility to stay on top of that on your behalf and make sure you’re always up-to-date about what’s going on.
I keep close tabs on the industry news. I’m always connected to my network of insiders who share their in-the-trenches insights and their take and advice on situations as they unfold.
And I, in turn, will keep you informed with regular updates...
It might be a couple paragraphs about what’s going on with changes to the citizenship-by-investment programs in the Caribbean. (Europe is not happy with the lax due diligence on applicants who, then, can gain visa-free access to the EU’s Schengen Zone...)
Or I may get news about updates to Malaysia’s MM2H retirement program and share that with you, along with my take on the situation.
When there’s something you should know about, I’ll send out a note on the Global Citizen Wire. This is a way for me to quickly communicate updates and useful tidbits with you. And it ensures you’re always up-to-date and in-the-know.
I’d like to extend a personal invitation to you right now to join me as a member of Global Citizen.
When you say “yes,” you’ll be privy to the kinds of strategies and solutions that are usually reserved for the ultra-wealthy. But I’ll pull the curtain back and show you the concrete ways you can embrace a more international life.
When it comes down to it, this is all about having options.
If you are in the U.S., and all your investments are in the U.S., and your U.S. passport is the only one you have... you don’t have a lot of options when things go sideways at home.
When you have a more diversified stance... you can pivot when you need to. You’re nimble.
If you’re at all concerned about the direction you see the U.S. going in... or if you’re worried about your taxes increasing... or worried about the growing violence at home... or about the cost of health care... or your ability to preserve and grow your wealth so you can pass it on to your heirs... or you just want to build more resilience into your plans...
This service will show you how you could build an escape hatch—should you need it. Or should your kids or their kids...
You know, often when members of International Living think about going overseas, they think about their lifestyle aspirations first.
They consider their options for places where they can get what they want in terms of climate, surroundings, cost of living, proximity to home, and so on.
But when ALL you consider is where you’d put yourself, you risk missing out...
You can overlook opportunities—to set yourself up overseas in a way that not only suits your lifestyle goals but might also put you on a path to a second passport and the ultimate flexibility that can ensure or allow you to save on your taxes, for instance.
Or, when you’re single-mindedly focused on lifestyle, you may make simple mistakes that end up costing you in time or in money or both—like landing in a place on a visa that is, in fact, less advantageous than another or deciding you’d just rent a place when (because of tax or visa incentives, for instance) it would have made more sense to buy.
It’s worth your while to come at this idea of going overseas holistically. And that’s what I’ll help you do through Global Citizen.
Now the “Wealth Defense Industry” charges Family Offices and ultra-wealthy individuals tens of thousands of dollars—hundreds of thousands—for the sort of wealth- and freedom-protection insights I’ll share with you when you join me as a member of Global Citizen.
But I’ve said from the start, you don’t have to be ultra-wealthy to take advantage of these structures and strategies.
You simply need to understand the lay of the land, what your options are, and how to best make use of them. That’s what I’ll show you through my Global Citizen Prosperity Blueprint, which unlocks for you immediate access to—
And you’ll get all the timely updates, new strategies, nuanced details, and recommendations every month in my private, members-only—
This is exactly the sort of guidance and in-depth insight I spent years sharing with the ultra-wealthy. But why should they be the only people privy to these strategies and solutions designed to secure your assets, grow your wealth, and protect your future—overseas?
One single tax tip I share with you could save you tens of thousands of dollars. Consultants in this field charge as much as $750 an hour to help their clients. So it would be easy to justify a price of $2,000 or more for a year’s worth of access and insights as a member of Global Citizen. But the regular annual price is just $995.
And I have a special offer for you today. When you sign on as a member, you can do so for less than half price—and get started for less than $140.
We don’t have plans to make this offer indefinitely, though, so I want to encourage you to take advantage of it today. Please click through on the button for details and to join.
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When you do, you’ll be able to tune in to a special Q&A. New members have been sending questions to me—and so I sat down and answered them for everybody to hear.
I dive into different aspects of all sorts of topics I’ve covered here today to explore strategies and give you a window into the lay of the land when it comes to securing your assets, growing your wealth, and protecting your future.
Global Citizen is a place where we can gather together with like-minded members, and you can come to get guidance about all the ways you can embrace a more international life.
I feel strongly that the strategies I’ll share shouldn’t be reserved just for the ultra-wealthy and the famous. That’s not fair. They can work just as well for you to help you build a prosperous life that’s full of freedom, where you, your wealth, and your family are protected—no matter how nuts things might get at home.
The world is uncertain today... as is America’s place in it. I think it’s simply prudent to put a Plan B in place, and I look forward to showing you how to do it.
And that’s not all...
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Finally, I want you to know that you have my personal guarantee of satisfaction.
This offer is for my complete Global Citizen research service. I don’t mind telling you that I believe my research is second-to-none. Personally, I think it’s outrageous that the ultra-wealthy have this “Wealth Defense Industry” working on their behalf... when there’s no reason why you shouldn’t ALSO take advantage of the very same structures and strategies to save on your taxes, grow your wealth outside the dollar and outside stocks and bonds, and help you to gain the freedom and flexibility to live, travel and earn wherever in the world you want to spend time.
I’m offering you a guarantee that my guidance will open your eyes to the opportunities out there for you today... so that—with confidence—you can begin to untether yourself from the U.S. ... so you don’t have ALL your eggs in one American basket...
... so that you can find the place in the world that makes the most sense for you, where you can live better, spend less, and delight in the way your days unfold...
... so that you can organize your life so you minimize your taxes, and so you are able to pass your estate to your heirs without them handing a bundle over to Uncle Sam...
... so that you can do things like make an investment now in a property abroad that would allow you to shelter some funds outside the States, outside the dollar... and give you an investment that’s poised to appreciate and which could provide you income and a spot you could escape to a few weeks or months a year...
... so that you could do all of this and also put yourself on a comfortable timeline to secure a second passport if that’s something that’s important to you—so that you gain the freedom and flexibility dual citizenship can provide.
But if you’re not satisfied for any reason, just let me know during the first 30 days of your membership, and I will give you a complete refund.
I hope I’ve opened your eyes to the vast opportunities that are out there beyond our borders... when you know to look for them and how best to make them work for you.
I’m looking forward to our future correspondence... and to creating a long-lasting and prosperous relationship with you.
Simply click on the button below, and you can register with this very special offer now. I look forward to meeting you...
Warm Regards,
Ted Baumann
November 2023
P.S. Folks who have benefitted from my research and guidance in the past have shared their appreciation... I feel confident you’ll find my Global Citizen service similarly helpful...
Knowledgeable, Well-Thought-Out Advice
Thank you for being you... Your knowledgeable and well-thought-out advice is not only helpful, it is entertaining. I admire your individualism and your gracious spirit. Thank you for sharing with us. — Jane M.
Appreciate the Outstanding Research
Quality information and opportunities abound. Please keep up the outstanding research. Thank you. – Frank E.
Helping Me Better My Life
I am touched that someone like YOU still exist on this earth who is interested and has passion in helping others like me to better their lives. — Emma R.
Ready to Exit
The risks to our personal freedoms have expanded many fold and fear rules the airwaves. I long to exit stage left. So I thank you for sharing your story, and I applaud your efforts [to] ...advise so many of us who find ourselves in a similar mindset. Anyway, you can see that your message struck a few familiar chords, so I just felt compelled to write. Keep up the good work! — Kathy S.
