Four, just as alternative programs have the chance of being fraudulent, so white glove programs have the potential for going sour when a new government takes over and wishes to rid itself of all those wealth robbing foreigners who entered under the previously constitutional programs enacted by an elitist parliament who is no longer in power.  Fortunately, the political undesirables who received economic citizenship are all on one list, duly entered into the official rolls.

Five, citizenship from any country available by birthright is a gift from the gods and should be treated as a very special inheritance.  And it’s even better if it comes from a first world country.  But I wonder how many illegal immigrants in the U.S. (or registered aliens for that matter) from Guatemala know that, after they’ve saved a few bucks here, stand a good chance of emigrating to Spain and becoming a citizen of the E.U. in two years!  All too many of us have come from Irish, English, German, Dutch or Italian ancestries that could have provided citizenship to us if our parents or grandparents had done something about it “back then.”  You may be the last generation that is able to apply for birthright citizenship and you must do it before your children are born if they are to be covered.  Don’t hesitate to claim any other citizenship you are entitled to.  I don’t care if it’s a godless Stalinist country.  You never know what the future will bring.  Some people could have claimed East German citizenship when it wasn’t worth two cents.  Or how about Hungarian, Czech, or Polish ethnicity?  They just entered NATO.  Can full EU recognition be far behind?  But for the rest of us poor devils, blood may not have blessed us with a Belizean/Canadian mother and a Cypriot father and an Italian grandfather!  Fortunately, there are alternatives. 

Aside: two useful genealogy/citizenship sites: for Ireland www.amireland.com for Italy www.daddezio.coms

Six, persons who live in countries from which they wish to emigrate, say old Soviet Bloc countries or Asian countries in flux, may not be willing to queue up for years awaiting first world permission to immigrate or may not be able afford the high cost of first world economic citizenship.  By acquiring discretionary citizenship in a civilized South American country, the immigrant increases a family’s chances ten fold for approval into its first world target country, say the U.S. or a country of the E.U. and has in the meanwhile escaped poor conditions and can safely live and work and amass capital to continue its journey, or perhaps find that they have found paradise in a country it never knew much about until it “bought” its way in.

Seven, for you PT advocates, oftentimes alternate citizenship seekers are not looking for a country for immigration purposes since they are operating under the “Five Flags” theory  one of tenets being never live in the same country as your passport (thereby nominally living outside the system of the country of residency).

A PT is urged to view a residency country as an innkeeper.  If the services are commensurate with the tariff, you keep your room at the inn.  If the rate goes up or services fall or the climate sours, you move on.  In this scenario, your new citizenship is not for the purpose of finding employment or a home, but for the convenience it offers to visit and linger within “innkeeper” countries.  In this solution matrix, an alternate citizenship can provide the means to visit and stay in countries without acquiring visas (thereby not checking into the system).  By carefully looking at the list of visa free countries approved by a potential “innkeeper” country, one might find alternative citizenships that are more useful or more affordable than “front door” programs.

Eight, there are persons who are using some of W. G. Hill’s good advice, who simply wish to acquire a “banking passport” under a name other than one’s given name, in order to hold assets anonymously without the bother and cost of international business corporations (IBCs) and registered agents and nominee directors and annual renewal fees or trusts with yearly trustee fees and the attendant risk of some one else having a hand on your funds.  Crudely put, it might be better to spend $25,000 once and have no risk whatsoever, than $3000 per year for 20 years with some risk of misappropriation or discovery.  There is also an even nastier reason. 

If one is trying to use such a contrivance to escape the jurisdiction a high-tax country, the IBC/trust route to anonymity is, in 99.9% of cases, just as potentially unlawful as the anonymous banking passport  and a lot more likely to be discovered.  How dare I say that?  Because if you can afford international tax advice, which includes citizenship portfolios, from competent lawyers and accountancy firms and your track record is clean enough and your bank account is fat enough, you are definitely not reading this article!  And tax-avoidance -international-planning is a dicey bit of business for the do-it-yourselfer.  If you don’t have assets in the millions and you’re not paying $50,000 for the advice, chances are the advice you’re getting is just mucking up already muddy waters.  And, Lord forgive me for saying this, but firms who offer advice for a large fee to help you avoid tax or hide assets, will usually set up programs which require their watchful eye and a yearly retainer.  I’m equally sure that none of them receive commissions from the companies abroad who actually set up the accounts and manage them on behalf of the client.

Less it be said that I unreasonably besmirch carriage trade practice (since I too have plied that trade) may I remind the reader that any of us who offer this type of tax or asset protection advice are either officers of some court or have otherwise sworn oaths to uphold national and state laws and we fear a disgruntled, revenge minded client as much as the long arm of the law.  Put practically, no one can afford to offer anything less than upper crust white bread advice with the threat of lawsuits from errors and omissions and criminal prosecution for “structuring” held over our heads.  Can you imagine how vulnerable a lawyer would be if she were to have the gall to tell you to forget the whole international planning route and instead buy a Mozambique passport for $5000 in any other name except yours, get a mail drop address with 24 hour access based on your new passport and a $200 international driver’s license to match, open a bank account in your own country as a foreigner “here temporarily on vacation from your missionary practice” in a town no less than a thirty minute drive from where you really live (since deposits held by foreigners are not reported to the government), regularly deposit by mail or at another branch in a town not your own, cash under $5000 or small money orders available for a buck at the local grocers or traveler’s cheques -- and forget international tax planning since you can move about a million dollars per year this way, and of course, you can visit your funds with an ATM/Visa debit card that you will most likely leave the bank with the day you open it your account!  And if you wanted to be extra safe, you could buy a $25,000 second passport and in a new name with supporting ID including driver’s license and birth certificate, in a territorially based tax country (no tax unless the income is made in the country) and then move the funds to a new bank near, but not in, your new homeland, and then visit your funds with a Visa debit card?  And if you’re willing to spend a miserly $50,000 on your new citizenship, you can have an EU passport in your new family name and live in, say, London on the fruits of your ill gotten gains!  Can you imagine any lawyer saying this?  Well, W. G. Hill, reportedly a retired attorney, has said much the same.  While all of this may be very sound and practical advice, as an attorney, I am precluded from offering this advice to you if you were to walk through the front door of my office.  And not only am I precluded, I am not stupid enough to do it!  Why?  Because if you don’t do everything exactly right or you tell you wife or soon-to-be-ex-wife or brag to the girls at the club about the great advice you got from your “smart” lawyer, and someone takes offense, or tries it themselves and forgets some of the steps and blows it, they’re going to call some crew cut government official whose going to lean on you and you’re going to name your lawyer in about 10 seconds as the guy who gave you this allegedly felonious advice and next thing the lawyer knows, he’s in prison  or spending every cent he has to stay out. All that for $300 worth of honest advice?  No, dear reader, it’s much better to charge you $50,000 up front and $10,000 a year and make sure that you have properly avoided tax under Subpart F of Revenue Code Section 954.  We can both sleep better at night.

In conclusion, there are a host of alternative citizenships available that may be more affordable and more useful than “front door” programs  and for persons whose credentials are not impeccable or whose pockets are not full, these programs can mean the difference between slavery and freedom.