OnTheBall Travels
Isle of Man was a last minute trip. I was first attracted to here because of my Celtic routes, the fact that my old professor was from there and of course, zero/low taxation. This was also during the peak of my travelling where I was hunting for a place to call my own.
Isle of Man is a quite pleasant place overall… its very quant like a small English village with beautiful architecture and cleanliness. I think it’s fair to say that the people hold the professionalism of the English but yet the sensibilities and gift of gab of the Irish, which makes sense that they are situated between them.
There is an interesting feature of the island which is that it has a history of neutrality. Spanning the last 2000 years, they have been a place of commerce for the Celts, the Vikings, the Brits. In fact most of it’s recent history was owned by the Stanley family who had a very much ‘live and let live’ mode of governance.
The only reason why it came under British rule was because of tariff fees. Shippers would gain entry to the British territory but first dock in zero tax Isle of Man and bypass the import duties. The British bought the isle from the nobleman to make sure they don’t lose out on these taxes. However, till this day, the island has been a point where people were brought together for purposes of commerce.
People
I absolutely cannot say enough about the Manx. They unknowingly win an award for being some of the most welcoming, kind and supportive people I’ve encountered while travelling.
Everybody we spoke to was welcoming and a pleasure to be around. This fact greatly gave the place “points” in my eyes, despite the downsides like cost of living and others you’ll come to read about below.
I recall being at the bus station in their small airport and chatting about which stop I have to get off on which bus–a voice in the dark back of the bus terminal stop utters “you don’t want to go off on that stop, you’re looking to go where I’m going”. While this sounds creepy at first, this man explained everything on the routes and made sure the bus driver knew to stop specifically for us to take us close to our destination.
When you land in Isle of Man (besides it being a beautiful & someone thrilling approach) it feels somewhat freeing that there’s no immigration or security on the other end. You get off the plane, get your bags and go about your business without being treated like a criminally-oriented child. It’s a nice little benefit with every country showing elements of a police state.
The islands is very community oriented. Many claim its boring and there’s not much to do, but people create events and support one another to keep themselves occupied. For those who like my INVESTMENT POWERPLAY STOCK PICKS, you’d love to hear that Gold and Silver was dug up all over the island–treasures that the Vikings once buried.
It’s worth mentioning that we saw very small children riding public transit by themselves, which is definitely a rarity in #LATAM
Kindness in Serious Situation
Leaving the island I was stopped because my gold/silver metals going through the detector. Turns out it was a Scottish gentleman working the security who knew exactly what I was holding and he collects Britannia’s himself. In fact I took a moment to show him my sort of collection as he took notice. His colleague snapped his attention back to work–and he waved us farewell. The point I walked away with aside from his friendliness was the fact that this fellow knew about gold & silver, he knew about investments, purities, values, etc. which to me demonstrated a level of sophistication on the island that just simply is not found in other jurisdictions. It’s expensive there for a reason.
Country and Incorporating
Isle of Man have traditionally been seen as a tax haven or a financial investment hub but you will have to believe me that they have absolutely ruined this title. Policy changes and consistent efforts to create a problem where one does not exist has people opting for other jurisdictions. In this sense, the changes in the UK do rub off onto the Island even if they’re not part of the same entity.
Corporate taxes are still zero but it’s quite difficult to operate with any business there with respect to permits, regulation, terms, oversight. For instance, after removing two business oriented visas (one due to lack of interest and the other because they didn’t like where the people were coming from who fairly underwent the visa), they had a two other options remaining.
Choosing this route it goes something like this; start a business, get a visa. There were some normal restrictions and some forms to fill out showing your business plan over a time frame. However as I got more into it, the more impractical it became. The language in your business application was to be very sensitive, limited to a handful of industries, some of which are uneconomical (just political buzzwords), a minimum capital requirement was to be held, a minimum number of hires after 2 years (and forced minimum pay and benefits of those hires) and you were unable to take money out from your business, pay yourself until the company was deemed profitable (not by you). In addition, you had essentially an officer assigned to your company who would periodically spy on your business operations to compare with your plan, your finances and judge whether you were able to meet the minimum hires–at any time they could down your visa if they weren’t pleased with your progress. The minimum funds had to be actively used and not strategically kept in cash, gold or land.
Furthermore, trying to start a fund there is an expensive nightmare of overregulation, surveillance and expectation of large legal fees. When compared to British Virgin Islands, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Cayman Islands, they simply don’t make sense to start a fund here. The plentiful rules essentially close out all innovation, small and mid-size business or non-HNWI from operating in a sector that is lucrative. They are not the only to do so, but the bottom line is that it’s not the free-and-easy zero tax country it used to be years ago. Even with some meetings I’ve had, they wanted to refer to themselves as tax neutral as opposed to zero tax–Maybe someone was “triggered”?
I feel quite confident in saying this because as for the territory/dependency I really loved it there so I’m not writing anything off yet–but it’s not an easy or cheap process to gain entry for economic purposes
Having said this, their strict rules on immigration probably benefit the island with huge levels of safety, not that I'm that dangerous...
Impressions
Takeaways:
- The friendliest, most down-to-earth, helpful people in all of Europe. You can quote me on that.
- Lots of green land, an excellent European getaway location.
- If you can live there (Irish and UK citizens can live there) by deriving foreign income than it’s a great place & has great tax profiles; business wise; you will find better jurisdictions, without a doubt.
- Lots of homes are for sale. Home prices have gotten crazy lately so this is either a mix of people selling at the top or they are unable to keep the payments to the bank going. Actually all prices have gone bizarre. Electricity, food, gas have all gotten insane (see this below). That’s what happens when most of your gas from Russia and you play politics.
- Some of the most beautiful views wherever you go on the island. Home interiors will shock you; they are very lovely inside despite being somewhat unexciting on the exterior.
- Child friendly
- Quite apolitical still, problems there are not supercharged and polarized like other areas of the West. There are growing numbers of parents deciding against forced untested vaccination and for home schooling on the island (coming soon article).
- Despite living an average quiet life there, they are walking lockstep in the wrong direction by fulling adopting the globalist marxists 2030 agenda(s). If you’re remotely aware of the problems in UK and Ireland; it’s simply UK-lite (partly because of their small, older population). As a friend far smarter than me said, “They’re completely captured”.
I truly wanted Isle of Man to work. I could have envisioned a future family there. The friendly people, English-speaking, the green fields, the professionalism paired with the 'pub-humour', no migrant change (96% are locals or British) and numerous ways to pay very little in taxes; it checked all the boxes.
Business
Notwithstanding, the island is still pretty business friendly all things considered. They are slightly slower to adopt change and often make a change that satisfies the tyrannical characters throughout Europe but in practice, changes very little from an operational & regulatory standpoint. If you’re European and have European clients? It makes all the sense in the world
Cheeky
I recall my time there where I was working with somebody on an application for something and it was a big thing to state tax neutral instead of tax haven, or zero tax. Tomató; Tomáto. I don’t know who they’re kidding, but you can see the modification of language similar to the UK, which is a terrible sign
I think its also important to say that it’s not a “boring” place that I’ve seen often mentioned. I was expecting we may have to get stuck in traffic to pass the time, but the reality is that it has everything you need to consume your day; enough eateries, shopping, places to exercise, parks, cafes & community events. In fact, Isle of Man has a benefit that it is connected to major centres (albeit expensive) in Belfast, Manchester and London. It’s more strategic to live a quiet, safe, unbothered life and then pop into the large chaotic city for a concert or meeting every now and then rather than the opposite.
Exhibit A
From Island Global Research and for Isle of Man as of the end of 2024:
Isle of Man
- 8% cannot afford costs and often have to go without essentials
- 38% of those who cannot afford costs rent their property
- 14% said they could not afford an unexpected but necessary expense of £100
- 42% would struggle to afford a £100 per month increase in living expenses
- 48% found it difficult to meet living costs in the last 12 months
- 12% of people have found it difficult to meet the cost of transport, down 4 percentage points on 2022
- Around 1 in 4 have received support to finance their everyday living expenses in the last 6 months
- 84% agreed the rising cost of living was impacting their household
- Just under a third are extremely concerned about the future impact changes to cost of living will have on their household
- 42% are very concerned about poverty and inequality in living standards today
- 43% think inequality in living standards will get a lot bigger in the future
Closing
I loved my time in Isle of Man. I hope you believe me when I say I made some serious attempts and considerable searching to plan for a move there. As I said, it was a place that I envisioned safety, security, shelter and happiness for a future family. If I had to describe Isle of Man, I’d say it’s a pleasant, beautiful place that resembles what England ‘used to’ be still today.
I suppose Isle of Man are still in the plan books, but now placed them on the back-burner (even using a new citizenship as a crux to help myself to get to the island at a later date). Whilst I wait for things to shape up, I literally spent over a year searching news headlines, reading bills and laws, and reports from locals complaining about changing occurring on the island–I seem to be proving myself correct that it’s seen better days, unfortunately.
However, I quickly ran into peculiar strictness with respect to immigration, company operations and financial regulations. Despite not having to owe a single penny in corporate tax, the regulations (which are increasingly daily) such as hiring requirements, spending limitation, forced audits and capital minimums ensured that I couldn’t get anything off the ground without considerable capital to start (of which, would be wasted). Since, the public has been struggling and the white collar operations are increasingly put under an oppressive treatment.
In what I thought was initially just high cost of living following sanctions, became something more integral where I now believe the Island’s best days are behind it. The bottom line is that it’s aging rapidly, slowly being subverted by neo-marxists ideologies (latest item in their Manx Museum is LGBT non sense), there’s a housing crisis getting worse, public spending (and government presence) is growing, some dystopian camera/lockdown measures are shaping up at the ports and as I can personally attest, is surprisingly business unfriendly at times.
With food imports being at the helm of a Trotskyist and his comrades in Westminster and trends against Europe once again, I am reluctant to say that I don’t think I’ll be back to this beautiful peaceful island soon. In a select set of circumstances such as a move for children’s sake, to incorporate a company offshore there, to get out of the European Union and use there professional, yet cumbersome banking/brokerage services.
