Hacking The World Living without an address
I thought I had it all figured out. I lived in the Netherlands, had some companies, bank accounts, well about everything there, and I just wanted to sail the world. I could control everything via the internet and keep business going on as usual. So I thought.
The first crack in the system surfaced when I just sold my house and wanted to check out of the local township.
“What is your new address going to be?”
“I don’t have one…”
“Well, you are going to sleep somewhere, right? So where do you reside?”
“On my own yacht”
“Ah I see, so all I need is the address of the marina”.
“Well no, I’m not staying there, I’m leaving.”
“Oh, are you leaving the country?”
“Yes”
“Ah, so you are immigrating. To which country do you immigrate?”
“No, I’m not immigrating. I’m just going to sail around the world. I will be a tourist everywhere.”
“Uhmm. But I need to fill out an address. You need it for communication with the government, to keep your bank accounts, your phone providers, to receive letters from the tax agency, etc. You can't live without an address.”
“No worries, I can give you a postal address for all of this. Here is the permission from the home owner.”
I wasn’t too worried at that time. I had a positive bank account, I was paying tax, I was a good and obeying citizen, living on a sailing yacht is not illegal, so why would anyone with a sound mind possibly make life difficult for me? But I underestimated the bureaucratic minds of those whom we have given the power to rule.
Two years later the township informed me that they had cancelled my postal address registration. The reason was that they could only keep such an address for no more than two years. There was a law against extending it beyond that point. A postal address would only be possible for those living on commercial vessels, but not on recreational vessels. I heavily objected and tried to somehow fit into the rules. I even considered registering for commercial fishing activity and declare the catch of just one fish per year, so I could be regarded as “living on a commercial vessel” and keep my postal address, but that would introduce some other complications.
It all felt like injustice. I had done nothing wrong. I was just living on my sailboat, kept a company going, had an income and was paying my taxes. But I just didn’t fit into the system where everyone is supposed to live in a house somewhere.
I published my story on the internet, complete with the correspondence with the local government. They were not amused, because of the exposure of those involved. They summoned me to remove it from the internet. I refused and asked them what they were going to do about it. They said they were going to subpoena me. So I said "Good luck, because you just cancelled my address, so you have nowhere to send it to anymore. You are such a fools!". The web page is now, five years later, still up and running.
Since I appeared to not live in the country anymore, I lost my right on social security and other benefits. I kept fighting for my rights, I went to the national council to no avail, but there was no department willing to listen to my arguments. Well, except for one, and that one was the tax department. Sure, they would consider me a Dutch resident forever until I could produce evidence that I was fulfilling my tax duties somewhere else.
So, wait a minute… I was no longer entitled to receive social security, health insurance etc, because there was no evidence I was still living in the country, but I was still obligated to pay the (quite high) tax of my home country because there was no evidence I was living somewhere else???
It became time to fight back in a different way. I started to research the system. If I couldn’t win the system by fighting the injustice, then maybe playing the system along and using similar flawed rules in my advantage could be used not only to overcome the problems, but actually turn my “addresslessnes” into an advantage?
Now, five years later, it seems I actually have accomplished this. I got rid of my tax hungry home country, I not only still have my bank accounts but actually opened a few more in different continents, I even set up a new company, and have no significant tax obligations anywhere anymore.
It wasn’t easy, it took me much time to do the research. Somehow all the available information is full of legal and financial jargon and difficult to read and comprehend. And it all depends on a flawed system where bureaucrats assume that everyone lives in a house somewhere and centers his assets into or around his home country. If I would publish the information openly on the internet, easy for Google and everyone else to find, the system would change eventually but not for the good. So I decided to publish my escape route in a book instead.
So, sorry for the paywall, but I want this information to be only available for those who really need it and prove this by paying for it.
Please note, this book is not about “tax evasion” but about making the best out of a system that doesn’t account for those of us who are truly living a nomadic lifestyle. As far as I know, my way of dealing with the situation isn’t illegal, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to open new companies and to obtain new bank accounts. If I would have any doubts, I wouldn't publish all this information, easy to track back to me.
Also note, the information in this e-book is my personal experience, as a former Dutch resident. I don’t outlay a recipe that you just have to follow to the letter to become tax independent. You will have to adapt my escape route to your personal situation. Then again, I learned that most countries carry the same rules, like “you have to pay income tax in the country where you actually live for more than 183 days per year” so my escape route would be applicable to all of these countries. The United States is a noticeable exception, but for those with a US passport there is still a lot of valuable information in this book.
Coming soon: "Hacking The World"
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