Offshore Without a Land Address

[Ortolan]

Our biggest physical address problems were with financial institutions. Apparently the feds mandate they verify addresses thru software which finds not only UPS Stores, etc., but any commercial address. As we tried to use our UPS Store & then a marina address, 2 different financial companies froze our accounts!

A secondary issue we found was attempting to move money between accounts while in the Bahamas - again they froze our account! Their software determined we were accessing our account while out of the US & that is not allowed (they claimed anyway) as they (a major investment company) are only licensed to do business in the US.

Russ

[crazyoldboatguy]

It would be helpful to know how you addressed these issues. Or was it just the old fashioned lots of calls and letters thingie?

[Hudson Force]

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

US passports allow you to fill in the address in PENCIL!

Is this the application for the passport? Our US passports have no location to identify an address.

[Ortolan]

As to the physical address, one financial institution finally allowed us to bring in proof (dockage bills) for the particular marina's address we used (we happened to be in Vero Beach that week & they had an office there). The other wouldn't play ball, so we had to pick a relative's address to use.

As far as having our brokerage account frozen while in the Bahamas, it took 2 weeks, but finally they allowed us to do a one-time withdrawal - our account otherwise was frozen until we returned to the US & weren't allow to buy or exchange any mutual funds. A real pain-in-the-ass & I was going to close the accounts, but I think government regulations & all are behind it, so probably an increasing problem with all of the them. BTW - I had no problems with the same companies the previous 2 years in the Bahamas.

Russ

[colemj]

Originally Posted by Ortolan

Our biggest physical address problems were with financial institutions. Apparently the feds mandate they verify addresses thru software which finds not only UPS Stores, etc., but any commercial address. As we tried to use our UPS Store & then a marina address, 2 different financial companies froze our accounts!

A secondary issue we found was attempting to move money between accounts while in the Bahamas - again they froze our account! Their software determined we were accessing our account while out of the US & that is not allowed (they claimed anyway) as they (a major investment company) are only licensed to do business in the US.

Russ

We use a commercial service for our address (St. Brenden's Isle) and have never had any issues with federal statutes with regard to banking, investing and the like.

We have also done all of our investment, banking, creating accounts, moving money between accounts, etc from outside the US for the past 6 years without any issue at all. Some of these accounts are non-US and we move money between them and US accounts.

I suspect all of this was explicit to your specific financial company and nothing to do with federal regulations or rules in general.

Mark

[Randyonr3]

Warning.......... we went throu the same issues when we left, set up a mail forwarding address and dropped off the grid..
all was fine UNTIL, 8 years later we decided to come back in and re-establish a part time life on land.... Holy Smokes... cant rent an apartment, couldnt buy a car, and the credit we had built for a good number of years was gone. and at one time I had a credit line of 50k on my signature alone.
We were told, by dropping everything including our address, we had turned into GHOSTs and that a ghost was worse than having bad credit. even thou we kept a bank account with funds in it.
So the warning is, if you ever plan on comming back to a land based home, keep a credit card working, maybe two, and keep a real address..
we have sence starting using our sons home for an address.. Really bad that at age 62, we have to re-establish our credit.

[colemj]

Originally Posted by Randyonr3

So the warning is, if you ever plan on comming back to a land based home, keep a credit card working, maybe two, and keep a real address..
we have sence starting using our sons home for an address.. Really bad that at age 62, we have to re-establish our credit.

As others have stated, many of these mailing services act as real addresses.

In addition to keeping a credit card, also don't forget about car insurance. We learned from friends (who learned the hard way) that dropping car insurance for several years automatically puts you in the high risk pool category upon returning. We keep a relatively inexpensive non-drivers policy that covers us should we rent a car, but more importantly keeps us "visible" as having years worth of coverage.

Mark

[Canibul]

We've been residents of the TCI for 9 years now, and use MyUS to forward packages to us. St. Brendan's Isle is better for those who get a lot of mail. We don't have mail delivery here, so mail forwarding would be a dead end. The hardest part is trying to convince people that they cannot mail us things. The Social Security people are the worst.

I am puzzled as to why people think their passports have anything at all to do with physical addresses. They don't.

Whatever you do, in addition to the other advice here, make sure you keep a valid drivers' license going. It's not a big deal to trade one for another as you move around, but if you let the last one expire and then go a while without one, and don't live there anymore, getting a new one might cause you some real hassle.

[colemj]

Originally Posted by Canibul

St. Brendan's Isle is better for those who get a lot of mail.

St. Brendan's also provide a service where they scan your mail and send you pdf files of it. After the first year out, we get very little mail anymore, and only a couple of pieces/yr that we need sent to us (our boat documentation and epirb registration, along with updated credit cards, for example).

Mark

[crazyoldboatguy]

This has been very helpful. Much to chew on and process. Thank you.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

We do not have any.

If you have any land based source of income, you will have your residency where the income comes from.

b.

Nope. State of origin of income does not establish legal residency.

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by belizesailor

Nope. State of origin of income does not establish legal residency.

Most countries will tax your income unless you prove your TAX residency (not 'legal'? residency) is elsewhere. And then only when bilateral tax agreements are in place.

It is always most convenient to be taxed in your own country, unless you are a big fish aka tax evader.

A boat will be flagged, normally, in your own country; and having a boat flagged in your own country creates conditions that are, in most legal systems, same with having a residency in this country.

b.

[colemj]

In the above discussion, "taxes" were referring to individual state taxes, not federal.

Mark

[Sailor_Hutch]

Originally Posted by Canibul

We've been residents of the TCI for 9 years now, and use MyUS to forward packages to us. St. Brendan's Isle is better for those who get a lot of mail. We don't have mail delivery here, so mail forwarding would be a dead end. The hardest part is trying to convince people that they cannot mail us things. The Social Security people are the worst.

I am puzzled as to why people think their passports have anything at all to do with physical addresses. They don't.

...

While the US passport application has a space for an address, it has "P.O. Box" as one of the options above the address line. For such an application though, you'd almost surely need another form of ID that included an address (license, etc).

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

Most countries will tax your income unless you prove your TAX residency (not 'legal'? residency) is elsewhere. And then only when bilateral tax agreements are in place.

It is always most convenient to be taxed in your own country, unless you are a big fish aka tax evader.

A boat will be flagged, normally, in your own country; and having a boat flagged in your own country creates conditions that are, in most legal systems, same with having a residency in this country.

Origin of income does not establish an individual's residency for tax or other legal purposes. Neither does the flag of your vessel (certainly not under IRS rules).

Legal Residencey and "tax domocile" (per IRS rules) are two different things.

For example, my boat has Belizean registration, I have legal residency in Guatemala, income from multiple States and countries...my Tax Domocile for IRS purposes is Florida.