{"id":723470,"date":"2023-10-08T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-08T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=723470"},"modified":"2023-10-06T15:39:28","modified_gmt":"2023-10-06T13:39:28","slug":"how-to-protect-your-money-from-south-africas-failing-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business-opinion\/723470\/how-to-protect-your-money-from-south-africas-failing-state\/","title":{"rendered":"How to protect your money from South Africa&#8217;s failing state"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Brenthurst Wealth investment strategist Magnus Heystek has provided an easy-to-use checklist to protect your money against the failing South African state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He provided this information in response to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.biznews.com\/interviews\/2023\/09\/27\/david-ansara-protection-in-a-failing-sa-practical-ways-to-make-yourself-state-proof\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a speech from Free Market Foundation CEO David Ansara<\/a>&nbsp;where he discussed the failing state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although South Africa is not yet a failed state, he said the government is failing and has effectively run out of money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead of admitting failure, the state continues to expand its scope and authority, hampering business in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ansara advised individuals, businesses, and communities to \u2018state-proof\u2019 themselves by becoming self-sufficient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a first step, he said individuals and businesses should pay as little tax as possible by using legally acceptable methods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He also urged big businesses to stop supporting the government. Instead, people should support civil society organisations that are creating alternatives to the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Heystek agreed with Ansara\u2019s views but felt he could have gone further on some of his proposals to protect wealth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAll wealthy South Africans should offshore as much of their wealth as possible \u2013 a financial get-off-the-grid-strategy \u2013 to protect their lifestyle in South Africa,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He believes the best way to state-proof yourself and your family is to create structures in a place such as Mauritius by setting up trusts, companies, or foundations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe more you can break the hold the state has or could have over your financial affairs, the better,\u201d Heystek said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Protect your money against the failing South African government<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Heystek provided a strategy to protect your wealth and state-proof it against the ANC government. The full version is&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.biznews.com\/thought-leaders\/2023\/09\/28\/magnus-heystek-state-proof-from-failing-south-africa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">available on Biznews<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Sell down your local property assets<\/strong>&nbsp;as much and as soon as you can, as South African property investments have become a dreadful investment and a capital trap.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Consider renting rather than buying<\/strong>, especially when retiring. Renting is cheap, and the owner of the property is most probably subsidising your lifestyle.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Move all your discretionary investment offshore<\/strong>&nbsp;while you still can. The weakening rand reduces the amount of foreign currency you can buy, and regulatory changes may make it more difficult.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Consider moving your offshore assets and investment portfolio into a Mauritian trust<\/strong>&nbsp;to further put distance between your assets and the ANC in South Africa.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>If you have a business which can offshore some of its operations, do it<\/strong>. An easy way is to set up a holding company in Mauritius and run some of your operations from there.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Open a bank account in Mauritius<\/strong>&nbsp;and link this account to your offshore investment portfolio. Any withdrawal from your portfolio can be done into this account.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Invest in US dollars.<\/strong>&nbsp;It can reduce your taxes payable in South Africa as capital gains are only levied on your USD profits and not due to the rand weakening.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Heystek said this strategy will help protect your wealth and place you in a position to emigrate should South Africa become untenable and risky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>This article was first published by Daily Investor and reposted with permission. <a href=\"https:\/\/dailyinvestor.com\/investing\/32742\/protect-your-money-against-the-failing-anc-government\/\"><strong>Read the original here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business-opinion\/716486\/failed-state-warning-for-south-africa\/\">Failed state warning for South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Investors are warning South Africans to &#8216;state-proof&#8217; their themselves by becoming self-sufficient and protecting their money from the poor economic policies of the government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":716506,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-723470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-opinion","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/93"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=723470"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":723562,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723470\/revisions\/723562"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=723470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=723470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=723470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}