Malta Offers Citizenship and All Its Perks for a Price

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/01/business/dealbook/malta-offers-citizenship-and-all-its-perks-for-a-price.html

by sytelus • 11 years ago

47 56 11 years ago

This is going to be a disaster for Malta. These people don't fuck around when it comes to damaging the places where they live, and with a population under half a million on tiny island, the place can't exactly take a lot of abuse.

notsony• 11 years ago

Why? Sounds like a good idea to attract wealthy migrants, albeit temporarily, many of whom after getting EU citizenship will move onto other locations in the EU. What are the downsides?

wavefunction3• 11 years ago

Fugging shithead sociopaths from other cultures moving in to colonize once-proud social-democracies... With the help of domestic sociopaths.

dublinben• 11 years ago

The entire article is about how these people don't even plan on living in Malta. They are buying access to Europe, not Malta.

michaelochurch2• 11 years ago

That makes it even worse. It'll drive up property prices and make the locals, relative to cost of living, a lot poorer.

There's so much filthy global money in Manhattan and California real estate right now that it's mind-boggling. And as Malta is a tiny island nation, and real estate exhibits extreme price inelasticity, this sort of thing can happen quickly.

Real estate hyperinflation is a plague that must be fought with any means necessary.

jane_is_here2• 11 years ago

Good way for Greece to make some money.

jotm2• 11 years ago

Oh, right, yeah those people coming in illegally by boat are a much better choice than rich people smart enough not to shit where they live...

xasos2• 11 years ago

This is a very interesting move. Estonia is doing something similar, by offering E-Residency to foreigners for a price [1]. With some very restrictive governments, this gives wealthy foreigners some leeway to go around the rules.

“We want to attract individuals who can add value to our country because of their ideas, and their networks and their businesses and their talent”

If this goal can come to fruition, this would be a great boost to Malta. I don't necessarily see it happening, and see more abuse of the citizenship than anything (probably to gain access to the EU's business benefits). However, it could potentially be a game changer. I wonder if other countries will follow suit.

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/26/estonia-offers-...

eps2• 11 years ago

What Estonia has is not similar at all.

Maltese citizenship grants you the right to live anywhere in EU and Switzerland. Not just visit, but settle. On the other hand Estonia's e-residency doesn't even give you a right to enter Estonia itself.

xasos2• 11 years ago

I think I mentioned that, check the linked article :)

It's similar in the fact that you are paying for residency in a way. You get the benefit of having an Estonian residency online, rather than your own, if so inclined.

allendoerfer3• 11 years ago

Sounds scary to a European. But on the other hand, they have money, we just have to tax them.

bayesianhorse5• 11 years ago

Why is that "scary"? The usual arguments (which I don't subscribe to) about social welfare etc don't really apply to people willing to pay that much.

I don't care for any immigration restriction at all. The war on immigration is failing globally. The US pays about 18 billion Dollars a year to enforce these laws, and has about a dozen Million illegal immigrants. Germany is quickly approaching the point where it should be deporting something like 500.000 persons a year, roughly the dimension of third-reich deportations, to not increase the population of illegal immigrants. But of course we can't deport that many people, even if we wanted to.

There will be a point where the European Union is forced to abandon the war on immigration. I just hope we don't lose our souls while trying to avoid that conclusion.

allendoerfer3• 11 years ago

Yeah, that position is easy. You are on the side that wants the poor African childs to live, while I am the bad guy in your story. I am not against individual immigrants either. But you have to be realistic.

You just can not deny the fact that massive immigration is a challenge for a society. If we only had an example of a country whose leading film industry produces movies about China towns, Ghettos, racism, the Italian mafia and the like, that I could show you …

Blaming the EU for its war on immigration is shortsighted. The European Union is as pro immigration as it can get. It is a continent with countries that spend the last thousands of years killing each other and people of 28 states are now free to move wherever they want. And it is expanding.

Social integration does not magically work. It is a good thing, when it works, but you need the commitment to invest big sums into it. See how hard it is to do this inside the EU. If we wanted to fix Greece, it would be a small hickup in our statistics.

If the EU now opens its borders without investing billions in integration programs, we will not get our melting pot but our very own salad bowl with Baltimores and Fergusons all over the place. I would say, pick an easier one first and take a look at Greece or Romania and Bulgaria, whose people are free to move here but have problems of similar scale [0] and the bad EU opened up to recently. That investment will pay dividends enabling us to take on the next one.

[0] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2285796/Romanian-gyp...

jotm2• 11 years ago

No, these are the "good immigrants". If they can afford to pay 1 million, they're welcome, just don't let them take over the government. The US has been doing this for a long time now.

You should be afraid of illegals from the Middle East...

wiradikusuma• 11 years ago

Isn't this "single point of failures" for all criminal activities targeting rich people?

It's like everybody putting their code in GitHub, and all hackers going after GitHub. Wouldn't it make Malta a good target for kidnappers etc? It's not exactly country with high security etc, unless I'm missing something.

milesskorpen• 11 years ago

Why? The whole point is that few/no rich people are spending significant time in Malta.

jpatokal• 11 years ago

Out of curiosity, what exactly is a "country with high security" then? It's considerably easier to waltz into (say) Switzerland over the unguarded border from France than to make your way to an island nation three hours by hydrofoil from the nearest neighbor.

Also, for what it's worth, Malta actually has a pretty good track record for this kind of thing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Siege_of_Malta

vizzah• 11 years ago

It's actually just 90 minutes on a commercial hydrofoil ferry ;)

jane_is_here2• 11 years ago

Australia has long offered something similar: "This is a way to achieve Full Permanent Residence without having strict regulations on yourself to work in Australia.

To be eligible for this visa, you need to have had AUD750,000 in eligible assets for the last 5 years = all assets such as stocks, bonds, savings, 2nd / 3rd homes - but not the house that you have lived in.

You also need to have had AUD1,125,000 (1.125 million) in total assets (which can include the house that you live in) for at least the last 2 years.

If you are eligible, then at the time of the decision you made a government approved Designated Investment for at least AUD750,000 in a State or Territory of Australia. This amount must be available for transfer to Australia within a reasonable period when requested."

technotony• 11 years ago

the USA has a similar scheme. If you invest $1MM in a business (or $500k if it's an area they are trying to get more investment into) then you get a green card: http://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-through-job/green...

grecy• 11 years ago

Canada has something similar too.

Istof• 11 years ago

Does $500k in the USA still buy you permanent residency?

inerte• 11 years ago

Yes, if you're investing in Target Employment Area, $1 mil for the rest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EB-5_visa

Strangely, I heard the requirement of 10 jobs being created doesn't come with a salary requirement, so I heard of folks being hired at $1 per year.

paulhauggis2• 11 years ago

I love it. It gives me options when we have undesirable tax laws in the US.

beagle32• 11 years ago

No it doesn't. US citizens and residents are taxed globally, regardless of where they reside.

And the last NYT report on it, if I remember correctly, the line to give up one's US citizenship was 5 years long (and you can't actually do that until you're taxes are all filed and paid)

paulhauggis2• 11 years ago

I never said I wouldn't pay all of my taxes.

but you can still move your company to another country and not get double business taxed (which will save lots of money) and get your money in a different way than just a pay check.

It's only fair. If the US government decides to make it difficult for businesses by raising taxes to the point of ridiculousness, I'm going to leave.

learnstats2• 11 years ago

If I've understood you correctly, it's unlikely you'll find something more to your taste in the EU.

The EU population doesn't tend to equate desirable tax law with lower percentage, anyway.

patkai2• 11 years ago

I think Hungarian citizenship is about 300k, it's a new thing. EU passport and good location.

leni5362• 11 years ago

Any source for this? I don't mind if it's Hungarian.

patkai2• 11 years ago

I think the ministry of foreign affairs outsources this operation to different companies, and each company takes care of a certain region e.g. China etc. You need to invest in bonds only, and get your investment back in 5 years, so the actual cost is pretty low. http://www.residency-bond.eu/ And the info is probably not available in Hungarian as it is directed to foreigners :)

toadi• 11 years ago

You can get residency in Bulgaria for just starting a company and showing a bit cash to prove you can support yourself. I think it cost me all a few 100 euro's :)

eps2• 11 years ago

Residency, not citizenship. Huge difference, that's why it's that much cheaper.

riffraff2• 11 years ago

On a sidenote, a lot of EU countries will grant citizenship to descendants of nationals (specific rules vary, but this includes off the top of my head Italy, Poland, Greece, Germany, Ireland, Croatia, Hungary etc).

This obviously doesn't apply for the world at large, but many people from the Americas are likely to have some european roots.

jfoster• 11 years ago

The term for this is "citizenship by descent", in case anyone wants to look into it. Usually it will require that either your parents or grandparents were citizens when you were born.

riffraff2• 11 years ago

thanks, the expression I commonly heard was "jus sanguinis" in contrast with "jus soli" (citizenship by birthplace).

But: in many cases it's not just close ancestors, i.e. you can get italian citizenship if you have _any_ ancestor who was born in italy since the 1800, as long as they didn't renounce it.

kijin• 11 years ago

I'd like to see an offer of the opposite kind: Citizenship or green card for a relatively low cost, but you need to pay relatively high taxes on your global income for the rest of your life.

Why would anyone choose that? Well, there are many reasons. A booming economy with good jobs, excellent educational opportunities for children, and a robust social safety net (funded by those high taxes) will attract hard-working people from developing countries to come and work to make your economy grow even more.

Both Canada and Australia could have used this tactic a long time ago, but unfortunately both of them are still too strict on skilled workers and trying too hard to attract millionaires. Guess what, those millionaires will not contribute a single penny to your economy besides the initial payment, whereas a thousand skilled workers will actually pay you millions of dollars in taxes every year.

bayesianhorse5• 11 years ago

The war on immigration is failing. Stop restricting it.

Malta Offers Citizenship and All Its Perks for a Price

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