
In this section I will talk about my personal´s friend case. I´ll call my friend James, although that is not his real name, and for obvious reasons, some details of my story will be slightly changed in order to protect my friend’s privacy.
James is from Canada and from an early age he was working really hard at his father´s company. His father was a successful sportsman, who, upon retirement funded his own sport outfit brand. He was successful and managed to open a second store (a branch) in one of Canada’s major cities.
When James took up the business, he made some serious changes towards the growth of the brand and the products it offered. As a consequence, the business grew immensely which meant it was time to consider something very important: a global tax strategy.
I was living in Panama at the time and James was on vacation with his family. I remember we were sitting in a beach front restaurant in the tropical paradise Bocas del Toro and we discussed James’s options. That´s when I decided to introduce him to one of our citizenship experts at Mundo Offshore.
After consulting with an expert, James decided that the best choice for him would be to get a second passport and establish tax residency in a low tax or even a zero-tax destination.
Panama is a great business hub and acquiring residency is super easy, especially for a Canadian under the friendly nations visa. However, in order to obtain Panamanian citizenship, it is necessary to live in the country for a whole period of five years, from which you have to proof to be present in the country most of the time. Moreover, James didn’t want to wait that long for a second passport.
Let´s see, it had to be a relatively fast citizenship in a low tax jurisdiction. Luckily there is a place that offers this and it´s our favorite island Vanuatu.