Puerto Rico Is the Only Place in World where Americans Can Be Free (Video)
CCTV America interviewed Peter Schiff last week about the benefits of moving your business to Puerto Rico. Earlier this year, Peter discussed how moving to Puerto Rico is the next best thing to renouncing your United States citizenship without having to pay exit taxes to the federal government. In this interview, he also points out how Puerto Rico may be in debt, but when compared on a per capita basis to the United States, America is in much worse shape. It’s just a matter of time before America’s creditors realize this is the case.
Highlights from the interview:
“[I relocated my asset management business to Puerto Rico] for the obvious benefit of getting to keep most of what I own. That’s not the case here in the States. The government takes most of what I earn. If I earn money in Puerto Rico, thanks to the fact that they finally reduced taxes there, I get to keep a lot more of what I earn. It’s too bad that Puerto Rico didn’t do this years ago, decades ago. They wouldn’t be in the economic trouble they are today. They would be a shining, bright spot in the United States. They would have the highest per capita income, instead of the lowest…
“For a lot of Americans, if you have some wealth, if you have some businesses, for the privilege of renouncing your citizenship, the US government imposes a very heavy tax. If you don’t want to pay that exit tax, if you just want to leave the country, no matter where you live, if you’re earning money, the US government wants its cut. That is uniquely American. Most countries, if its citizens travel abroad, they let them go freely. They’re allowed to earn money and they’re not subject to the tax. In fact, now they even want to revoke your passport if you owe more than $50,000 in taxes. They’re turning this country into a giant debtor’s prison. Puerto Rico is kind of a get-out-of-jail-free card. It’s one of the only places, or maybe the only place in the world where Americans can go and be free. We can be treated like citizens of any other country. If you go to Puerto Rico and earn money, the US government doesn’t tax you. Only the Puerto Rican government taxes you, and now they’re not taxing you there either. So Americans can experience the freedom that until recently was only available to people lucky enough to be born in other countries…
“The wealthy businesses that are coming Puerto Rico are paying taxes [4%]. But more than that, they’re hiring people, they’re investing, they’re developing. They are helping the economy. That’s one of the only things Puerto Rico’s got going for it now. Of course, if more people come, that will only benefit Puerto Rico. But yes, Puerto Rico has a lot of debt, but not compared to America. America has much more debt than Puerto Rico. America is in much worse shape than Puerto Rico. If you look at America’s debt-to-GDP, it’s much larger than Puerto Rico’s. And if you look at the per-capita debt, even if you account for the difference in income, America is much worse than Puerto Rico as far as its fiscal situation. It’s just that Puerto Rico’s creditors have figured out how broke Puerto Rico is, but America’s creditors haven’t made the same obvious conclusion. But if we were forced to pay the same type of interest as Puerto Rico, America would be defaulting too…
“Part of the requirement is you have to generate your income from outside of Puerto Rico to qualify for the tax exemption. You have to do the work in Puerto Rico, but you have to generate the revenue from outside of Puerto Rico. I would hope that one day Puerto Rico will abolish the income tax for everybody, so that nobody living in Puerto Rico has to pay income taxes on anything they earn. That would be the best thing that could happen to Puerto Rico, but at least they’ve taken the step in the right direction. New people that come to the island that bring their businesses, that bring their entrepreneurship, their drive, their ingenuity – if they bring that to Puerto Rico and they can generate income in Puerto Rico by rendering services outside of Puerto Rico, they can do so without having to be subject to US income taxes. Also, there’s no capital gains taxes there. So if you make some investments and they pay off, you get to keep the profits. You don’t have to cut in your silent partner, the US government, who is there when you succeed, but doesn’t share in the losses when you fail…”
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