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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 9, 2024

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5 Flags is the idea that there are 5 different aspects of your life and you need to choose which jurisdiction to put each of them into separately for different reasons. Four of the five flags are citizenship, primary residence, country of incorporation of your business, and country where you keep your high-balance bank accounts. What the fifth is depends on whether the person selling the idea is focussing on the digital nomad lifestyle (divide "residence" into the country where you do business and the country where you spend money), aggressive tax avoidance (game residency rules to separate tax residence from physical residence) or protection from instability (in which case the country where your non-financial assets are physically located becomes the fifth flag).

In all cases, an important part of the scheme is that each flag should go in a jurisdiction which offers hosting of that particular flag as a service to rich foreigners without any associated civic obligations. Another point is that putting too many flags in the same country is risky in case that country decides it doesn't want you any more, and that the best case is to have a second jurisdiction as a ready backup for each flag as well.