Welcome to Offshore Living Letter, Your #1 Resource for Offshore Diversification

Author: Lief Simon

03 Jan
Fiscal Cliff Tax Deal’s Implications For Americans Abroad

Fiscal Cliff Tax Deal’s Implications For Americans Abroad

What This Week's Fiscal Cliff Deal Means For Americans Overseas As it stands today, the 11th hour fiscal cliff deal approved earlier this week resulted in US$1 of spending cuts for every US$41 in tax increases, making it possibly the most one-sided victory since the Battle of Little Bighorn. By comparison, when President Ronald Regan [...]
31 Dec
How To Live Well On A Budget Overseas

How To Live Well On A Budget Overseas

I’ve been living overseas so long that my wife tells me I don’t know what things cost in the “real world” anymore, especially, she assures me, as my current frame of reference is Panama. Certainly, our first 24 hours or so in New York City last week, I thought she must be right. I must […]

24 Dec
Trying To Qualify For Bank Financing As A Foreigner In Panama

Trying To Qualify For Bank Financing As A Foreigner In Panama

Mortgage Madness In Panama Last week, before leaving Panama for Christmas in the United States, I met with a third bank in an effort to secure a mortgage for an apartment purchase in the city. The front line banker was courteous and wanted to be helpful, but, as I've learned over the past couple of [...]
13 Dec
Black Market Passports

Black Market Passports

Hey, Mister…Wanna’ Buy A Passport? Getting a second passport isn't easy unless you're born with more than one citizenship. My son Jackson was born in Ireland when they were still granting automatic citizenship to anyone born on Irish soil. This changed a few years after Jackson was born, because many "refugees" from Africa were manipulating [...]
10 Dec
The Importance Of Diversifying Out Of The U.S. Dollar And U.S. Markets

The Importance Of Diversifying Out Of The U.S. Dollar And U.S. Markets

An attendee at my Offshore Summit last month told me that, while he has traveled all over the globe and has friends in many different cities around the world, he had never, until last month’s event, considered buying real estate in another country. Despite this, he has what, until that point, he has considered a well-diversified investment […]

06 Dec
Self-Sufficiency In Uruguay, Chile, And Belize

Self-Sufficiency In Uruguay, Chile, And Belize

How To Be Self-Sufficient Without All The Work When I lived in Ireland, our house sat on 6 acres of land. Up a small hill behind the house was an area that had been, in a previous life, a kitchen garden. We restored the garden, after we discovered it, and planted everything from strawberries to [...]
03 Dec
Why Learn A New Language Overseas

Why Learn A New Language Overseas

One benefit of the way our children are growing up is their language skills. While I speak decent enough Spanish to get by when I have to and can even now read legal documents well enough to get the gist, my kids are fluent in both French and Spanish (along with English). They can switch […]

29 Nov
Increasing Regulation In The United States Hinders Business Growth

Increasing Regulation In The United States Hinders Business Growth

While in the United States last week for Thanksgiving, some of the dinner table conversation centered on expanding regulation in the United States. One specific conversation had to do with firing employees. As my sister-in-law, who runs a department at a big Baltimore hospital, put it: “Oh, you just can’t.”

26 Nov
Challenges Opening A Bank Account In The United

Challenges Opening A Bank Account In The United States

While in the United States this past week for Thanksgiving, I tried to take care of some administrative tasks. I renewed my driver’s license and Jackson’s Irish passport (the consulate in Panama made the process too difficult). And I tried to open another U.S. bank account for one of my offshore corporations. I realized recently […]