How To Think With Dan Henry My Decision on Moving To Puerto Rico for the 4% Tax Rate
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Are you considering a move to Puerto Rico?
You might be aware of the benefits of relocating to Puerto Rico, especially if you have a substantial income. Now, I’m no CPA, so you’ll have to get your tax advice elsewhere, but I decided to take a trip and check things out for myself.
I’ve had tons of questions about this, so I’m going to share the pros and cons of my experience as I toured a few places on the island.
I spent about two weeks there, taking in the sights and evaluating a few places I might consider moving to. While two weeks is certainly not enough time to see everything the island has to offer, at a certain point in my trip, I saw more of the inside of my hotel room than I would have liked…
Let’s just say, after that, it was time to head home. I’m going to share what I experienced and share my opinion.
If you’re seriously considering a move there, I suggest you take a trip yourself, take it all in and decide for yourself!
In this episode, I am going to cover:
- What COVID restrictions are like in Puerto Rico right now and how it impacts both locals and tourists
- Where I visited, stayed, and considered living on the island
- What COVID taught me about living in Puerto Rico full time
- AND… to move or not to move, my final decision!
If you got value from what you heard here, please be sure to subscribe and rate this podcast! Bonus points for you if you write a review! ;)
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— TRANSCRIPT —
In today's episode, I'm going to be sharing my experience, going to Puerto Rico and checking the area out for potentially moving there for the Act 60 tax benefits. And should you do it? Should you move to Puerto Rico? So you only have to pay 4% tax as a successful entrepreneur. That is today's episode.
All right, everybody, I have been getting tons of comments and emails and questions because everybody knows that I recently went to Puerto Rico to check out the area, to check out the real estate, to check out, you know, Hey, can I live here? Because if you haven't found this out already, there are some amazing tax benefits to moving to Puerto Rico. Now I will preface this by saying, look, if you're not making a decent amount of money, well, this really isn't even a question. You know, and I don't want to get into too much detail 'cause I'm not a CPA. But there is, I guess it's a law or an act called Act 60, where if you basically move to Puerto Rico and you establish residency there, you have a close connection, closer connection there than you do to the mainland United States. And you live there more than six months out of the year, and you do everything, right. Obviously, you contact a qualified CPA for this, but if you do everything right, you only basically only pay 4% tax.
Now that is substantially low. Now keep in mind, it's not a 4% tax in the traditional 4% tax. Like for instance, I got my tax rate down to 6.5% last year, but I also had to do some things that were really creative. Obviously all legal, but you know, like I bought a yacht and like a lot of people buy jets, right? They'll buy a jet because they, you know, if your CPA comes to you and says, listen you know, you gotta spend $2 million on a jet or a boat or whatever, or you got to give it to the IRS, and you sit there, and you think to yourself, well, let's see, I could give the money to the IRS where I know it's going to be spent terribly.
And it's just going to be wasted on $15,000 toilet seats for a government building, or I can get a jet. I can fly anywhere anytime I want. I can charter that jet. I can do business events on that jet, and I can further grow my business and my lifestyle with that. You're going to choose the jet. Okay. However, if somebody, you know, if your CPA says to you, Hey, listen, you can move to this place. And if you do, you get a 4% tax rate, and you don't have to buy any jets. You don't have to buy any yachts. You don't have to do anything creative. You just have the rates. Then you're like, Oh wow, that might be interesting. And that's what I said. And so I want to be clear that this episode is going to be very, you know, look, I'm not telling you to move there or not move there.
I'm not telling you to like it or not like it. I can share my experience. My experience could be different than your experience. You know, I have some friends that live there that love it. John Lee Dumas, Alison Prince, they live there in the absolutely love it. Whereas I have other friends who have tried it, and they hate it, and all in between. So I'm not saying it's good or bad. I'm saying you have to know what's good for you. And I can explain why I liked or didn't like it and what my reasons are. And hopefully, that'll help you. And potentially, if there are any deal-breakers, save you a trip.
Now, in another episode, I think I might go a little bit deeper into what happened to me while I was there 'cause I did actually get COVID while I was there. And I got stuck quarantined in a hotel room, which was, I'm kind of glad it happened because it allowed me to see not just what would happen in that country if you know if everything was going great, but as well, what would happen in that country if everything went wrong. And so that definitely gave me some perspective. So let me just go through and listen; keep in mind if you're from Puerto Rico, please don't take any of this wrong. I mean, look, like I said before, different strokes for different folks. There are things I liked and didn't like. That doesn't necessarily mean I'm throwing any shade at Puerto Rico for the things I didn't like. It just means I didn't like it. You know, just like there's probably stuff about the United States that somebody in Puerto Rico doesn't like, so I'm just going to in no particular order give my sort of limited assessment 'cause I was only there for a couple of weeks.
So when we flew into Puerto Rico, there were a lot of COVID restrictions you had to, you know, do all the crazy stuff. However, you know, I go to the airport, stand six feet apart, do this, do that, negative test, blah, blah, blah. And then, of course, you get on a plane, packed to capacity in a little metal tube for three hours, you know, sitting shoulder to shoulder, breathing, recycled air. And of course, that has to be where I got COVID. I just find it ironic that we go through all these precautions, and then, you know, you do that, just seems kind of pointless. But anyway we fly in, and you know, the area, 'cause we, we went to, we went to three main areas. We went to Condado well, we went all over San Juan, but that's the main city, right?
That, and it's very similar to Miami. In fact, if you were to knock me out, fly me to Puerto Rico, drop me in San Juan, I wake up, and you say, Hey, we kidnapped you and brought you to Miami. I probably wouldn't question you for like 15 minutes. I'd probably be like, yeah, I'm in Miami. It's very, so if you've ever been to Miami, that's pretty much as close as you're going to get to San Juan. And I don't like Miami. I've never liked Miami. I'm a St. Pete guy. I love St. Pete. I love Tampa. I can't stand Miami, just a multitude of factors, the traffic, and the way everything's laid out. So I did not like San Juan just naturally, 'cause I don't like Miami. Now I will say that when I was there, it was a very bad time for me to go.
So it's hard for me to give a good assessment, especially of San Juan, because I was there at the most inopportune time, meaning it was obviously COVID, Spring break, and Easter all wrapped into one. So I know that the locals were probably already had their patients tested. Now we did have a lot of people from the United States, less than, just partiers, just kids and partiers that were coming over to San Juan, throwing chairs in the streets, getting into fights, just acting like fools. And of course, that made, you know, people that don't behave like that, like me, look bad. And there's, I did feel an, I don't want to say an anti-American sentiment there, and maybe there is, maybe there isn't. More of an anti-American tourist sentiment, and rightfully so when, you know, a bunch of kids come over during spring break and trash their city, like I get it, you know?
So anyway, the point is that tensions were a bit high. Now I will say, and this is temporary, obviously, but COVID restrictions over there are pretty insane. I mean, like really insane. Like I was walking down the street with my mask on, and I never walk down the street, in the open-air with my mask on because that's, I don't know, to me, I find that a little ridiculous, very ridiculous that you would ever walk down the street by yourself with a mask on, odd. But, you know, they're, Oh, they're real mask crazy here. So I wear a mask. It's like an inch under my nose. I'm walking down the street by myself and a police officer; they got police officers everywhere, literally yells at me to pull up my mask. They're that nutty about it. And literally, when it comes to curfew, they will have police officers just go around everywhere, making people get off the street.
It's pretty. And coming from Florida, where I live, where we have zero restrictions, our governor has even outlawed the vaccine passport. And it's funny because we have like no restrictions. We're wide open. We've been open for months, and we have better numbers than a lot of states with higher restrictions, lockdowns, and high vaccine rates. And that's. I don't want to get into that. That's not the subject of this podcast, but anyway. So coming from that to this, it was a bit scary. It was a bit almost unsettling. It was very unsettling and scary. It did not sit well with me at first. It was very shocking. But again, you know, this is temporary things, obviously, you know, when COVID is gone, that'll be gone. So you can't evaluate it based on that. That said, that aside.
Now at first, I had a little bit negative view of how things were done there, but then we met a very nice bartender at the Vanderbilt who kind of explained and put things in perspective for us. And I was very grateful to have spoken to her because, at first, I was kinda like, man, these people, these locals don't like us, you know? But she basically gave me a book to read, and I wrote it down. I forget the name of it, but basically, it explained how there was a lot done to Puerto Rico by the United States in the past. Like testing things, testing drugs, and I don't want to get into it 'cause I'm sure that's a political conversation, but essentially I can see where they would have a little bit of, you know, chip on their shoulder based on that.
And she did put it into perspective for me. As well, she showed me that, you know, the government pretty much doesn't know what they're doing. They flip flop every few days on restrictions. And so what they're doing is they are basically saying, well, look, you know, you can only have this many employees, which is like half or less of the employees that they did have before, but then they like open things up. And so they're understaffed, they're overworked, and it's just kind of a mess over there. And again, this is all related to COVID. So if you're really truly considering moving there, I would take everything I just said with a grain of salt because, again, it's temporary.
All right. That aside, there is a saying that, you know, Island time, right? They say people move slowly in the islands, in the Caribbean, and that is true. However, I've been all over the Caribbean, not all over. I don't want to sound like I've been all over, but I have been to several spots in the Caribbean when I was a kid, as well as recently on my yacht. And I will say, and I live in Florida. Now, I will say that there are levels to the slowness, okay? The United States pretty much makes fun of Florida for being slow. We're on, you know, they call it Island time here too, or peninsula time or Florida time. And everybody in Florida is always late. Literally, we're always late. It's just a thing here in Florida. We are probably considered one of the slowest, if not the slowest State in the United States. If you come down, if you live in New York or LA or Chicago, and you come down to Florida, you are going to be like, what? Like, everybody moves, slow here. You know, people don't show up for appointments on time. It's just how we roll in Florida. We're, you know, the beach, and we're just whatever, right? You go to The Bahamas, and it's even slower. It's slower, right? And even as a Floridian, I have to get used to it, you know? 'Cause, it's really slow. Now you go to Puerto Rico; it makes The Bahamas look like Manhattan. I mean, it is slow.
I remember when we were at the Vanderbilt. And I was like, you know, what would be really nice? I want to get up this morning. I want to go to the top deck where they have the big pool area and the view. And I just want to have a cup of coffee. I don't eat breakfast. I fast till about one or two in the afternoon. I've been doing that for over a year. So, you know, I just want a coffee, so I get up and go up there. And I go to the hostess, give her my room number, wait, go sit down, have coffee, check out, and go back to my room. Now this whole process, because there was, there's a wait time, right? I had to wait to get seated. I had to wait to have a server come over. I had to order. I had to wait to get my coffee. I had to get my coffee. I had to wait to get the check. You know, there are several stages waiting. I kid you not, and again, this could be just because of the tourist time, the Easter and all that, but it took two and a half hours for this entire process, two and a half hours.
And I go back to my hotel room, and I'm like, the days like gone. I'm like, Whoa, you know? So I drank hotel room coffee for the rest of the time we were at the Vanderbilt. And I did have some interesting experiences there. And again, a lot of this is probably because there was just so much going on, but I ordered room service, and I was standing in my room, and the guy comes up and calls me a curse word. You know, I'd say it. You know, I don't have a problem with that. I just don't wanna get the little mark on my podcast episode, but he comes up and calls me a curse word, basically calls me an a-hole because I didn't have a mask on, in my own room. And he was like, there are unvaccinated people walking around. It's terrible. And I just, thinking, you know, at such a nice hotel, you know, you order room service and the guy comes up, I just thought it was odd, you know? But they're big on that over there. They're very big on that stuff. But I just thought it was odd, you know, I was like, okay, whatever.
And then I order an Uber, and I go up to the Uber, and I say, Uber, you know, I show them the phone, and you don't need to speak to somebody to take an Uber, you know? And he looks at me, and he says something in Spanish, and I say, "Oh, no Espanol." And he like flips. I think he flipped me off, some kind of hand gesture, and drove off and canceled the ride. And this happened several times. And, you know, at first, I got a little mad. I was like, man, Holy moly. But then I started to think, you know, well, there's probably a bunch of Americans over here acting a fool and probably just lumped me in with them. So I was trying to be really non-reactionary, you know? But essentially, I started thinking about it. I'm like, you know, this would happen in Miami. You know this is something that would happen in Miami. So I can't really hold it against the country, you know? It's just that type of city, so I was like, all right, we gotta get outta here. I can't deal with this anymore.
So before we actually left San Juan, and we did go to other places, and then we went to Old San Juan, which was actually really cool, kind of reminded me of like a Spanish version of St. Augustine. Really compressed, kind of historic city with lots of shops, but very, I don't know, very claustrophobic. It was too compressed. I, you know, from a visiting standpoint, yes, absolutely could totally visit, have a great time, but I was there not to visit. I was there to consider living there to get that 4% tax rate. So I had a different mind frame.
And so we went to Palmas Del Mar, which Palmas Del Mar was very nice. Palmas Del Mar is where a lot of Americans live. There's a lot of Americans there. So you know, you have a community of people that, that are like-minded, right? In other words, a bunch of rich Americans who don't want to pay taxes, let's just call it what it is. And look, they say, don't move to Puerto Rico if you're just moving there for the taxes. And that is true. Unless you love the country, you should not move there because you'll hate it. You'll hate it if the only reason is for taxes.
Really it's so true, but I go there, and I hang out with my good friend, Alison Prince, and I was supposed to hang out with John Lee Dumas, but he got COVID. Well, or he may not have gotten it. He was sick. He thought maybe he had COVID, but he was sick, so he just wasn't feeling well. Well, we're driving down the streets, you know, Alison was showing us around. We're driving down the street, and he's out walking his dog. And I'm like, Hey man. And he's like, Oh, Hey, Dan. And we were chatting for a minute. And he lives up. Just to give you an idea of what it's like to live in Palmas Del Mar. It's sort of like living in a golf community, kind of. There are these houses sort of in this mountainous sort of kind of thing.
There's nothing, that's all it is, right? There are houses, that's it on these long roads, very nice houses, beautiful houses, overlooking a beautiful view, but that's, it, there's nothing around it. You have to travel 15 minutes down to get to like one restaurant, you know? And I didn't explore Palmas that much, but if you have a family, you got a bunch of kids, there's a lot of stuff to do for kids. But you know, if you've got a family and kids and you want to grow up in a nice, you know, you want to take them and have them grow up in a nice, quiet place with schools that accommodate, you know, very American. You know, like they have an Academy there. And again, the community is full of people from America that are moving to Puerto Rico.
So it's, you know, if that sounds good to you and you don't need nightclubs, you don't need bars. You don't need a bunch of movie theaters. You don't need a downtown area. You're okay with just a few small things, you know, like a community house. You know, a couple of restaurants, a few restaurants, and again, this is me barely scratching the surface there. So I could be completely off on all of this, this is just what I saw, a little beach area, you know, a big beach area, but then it's good for you. But if you like to have a lot of options, like, I'm a downtown guy. I love downtown St. Pete. I love it. You know, Palmas was great, but I couldn't see myself living there. I just couldn't. I'd probably go nuts. I can't see myself living in San Juan just because I don't like that style of a place like Miami. So that was an easy no-go.
But, most people, when they move to Puerto Rico from America for the Act 60, they don't live in San Juan, right? At least the people that I know. They live in like Palmas, or Rincon or Dorado. And I didn't go to Rincon, but I did go to Dorado. So when we got back from Palmas, and I said to myself, ah, maybe if I was older and my kids were in their, you know, my kid was, I don't have kids, but my kid was older maybe, right? Maybe, but right now, my kid is only three. I got stuff to do, you know? I don't have four kids, you know? I just, it just, wasn't my vibe, you know. Maybe when I get a little bit older, and I want a little bit quieter, totally. The first thing on my list, but right now, no. I'm still, you know, I'm only 34, man. I'm still hopping up and down and running around, and, you know, I like options.
And so we go back, and we go back to the Vanderbilt and keep in mind, you know, look, I was being annoyed by tourists from America on the streets, acting a fool, myself. So, you know, it was, and again, I don't like those types of cities. So I was struggling in San Juan. And it was hard because, you know, there weren't a lot of English-speaking cab drivers. So, you know, I remember we went to, and this is what got it. This is what did it for us. We were at the Vanderbilt. And my good friend, Todd Snively, who lives right down the road, invited us to go to dinner.
And Alice, who is with me, bought a brand new pair of Versace heels, brand new, right? And she wanted to wear them to dinner. So, and she'd never had Versace heels before, I guess. And I don't really know if that's a big deal, but I guess for her, that was a big deal. But I don't honestly know what Versace is, except it's a brand. But I don't know; clothes are not my thing. But anyway we decide, okay, we're going to take a cab because she can't walk in those heels, right, because she'll A: They were like white Versace heels. She doesn't want to ruin them. She'll kill her feet. I mean, I know that much about heels. And it was like a 15 to 20-minute walk. So we want to take a cab. So we go out and, you know, Todd arrives at least 15 minutes early.
And we say to the front concierge, okay, we'd like a cab. And they say, okay, it's going to be 45 minutes. And we're like 45 minutes to get a cab? Are they building the car? Like, what do you mean? And that's it, 45 minutes. And so we were like, Oh crap. So we had this reservation, so she says, "Well, I'll just walk." I go, "Are you sure?" She said, "Yeah, I'm sure. It'll be fine." Well, it wasn't fine. We got about halfway there, and her feet were tore up from the floor up, and she had to take the heels off and walk, and then I had to go up and get band-aids for her, and it's just this whole thing. And Todd felt terrible. He's like, "I could have brought my car." And it was like, "Nah, we didn't know it was going to take 45 minutes. When does it take 45 minutes to get a cab in a city, in a major city?"
So after that, man, I was just like, I can't do this. Look again, I'm not throwing shade, but I like to move quickly. And I'm from Florida. And I just, I can't move that slow. I just can't. We're like; we're getting out of here. So, oh no, no. And then we go back up to the room, and we find blood on the sheets. They had changed the sheets, and there was blood on the sheets. And, you know, we were just like, okay, we're done. So we get, we check out, and they were very nice about it. I told them about our issues, and he said, okay, we'll let you out. And they didn't charge us anymore. They didn't charge us anymore. And they gave us credit. It's very nice. They were good management. I've got to say Vanderbilt management was very good.
And one more thing to know, that that bartender I said earlier was, she said, keep in mind, a lot of the people that work here are new to the service industry. They've never worked in the service industry before. This is like, you know, we're getting out of lockdown. This is their first time doing it. And now they're getting inundated with American tourists all at once. It's just a little much for them. I said that makes sense. That makes sense. Anyway, I just want to throw that in there.
So we said, okay, we gotta get out of here. So we decided to go to the Ritz Carlton in Dorado Beach. So we drive over, we get to the Ritz Carlton. Ritz Carlton is fantastic, right? I mean, this is like heaven on earth. It's heaven on earth. I mean, it's so nice. It's like being in ..., Man. I can't even describe how nice it is. Right? It is really nice. I mean, this is where really, really, really, really rich people go and live because there are some residences there as well. And I'm sitting there, and of course, I'm only there, we're on day one. So I'm like, this is amazing. This is where I want to live. This is it. And I like committed to living there. I was like that into it. It was so nice. And you know, so we're staying there and everything.
I go to the gym, beautiful gym, I run into Jason Capital and, I'm like, are you Jason Capital? And he's like, you're that Dan Henry guy. And, you know, and so we started talking, so we decided to have lunch. And the next day we have lunch and we, you know, we're talking marketing and all that stuff. And he was, by the way, super nice guy, super smart guy, very gracious, you know, awesome dude. Awesome dude. We shared some knowledge, and then, you know, we're talking about real estate. And the real estate market, there was nuts. Like, if you want anything, it's like four or $5 million. Now, of course, I can afford a four or $5 million house, especially if I'm paying a 4% tax rate. But man, I don't, like I could put that in Bitcoin. Like I don't need another ..., you know, buy a million or two and put the rest in Bitcoin. Like I just, I struggle to spend that much money on something I truly don't need when there are so many investment vehicles that can multiply my money. So I was struggling a little bit with that, but I was like, ultimately, long-term, it's probably more money, yadda, yadda, yadda.
But then, you know, I was like, all right, I gotta, I can't just get caught up in how nice everything is. I've got to go around the town, right? So we go around, we were looking at real estate. And again, if I was going to live in Puerto Rico, I totally would live in Dorado Beach, either at the Ritz Carlton residences or just in the Dorado Beach area. But everything, the market is nuts. I mean, I'm talking about places that were purchased for $750,000 two years ago, put on the market for 4 million, and they're getting it. I mean, it's nuts, it's nuts. The market is nuts. I was talking to some real estate agents there, and they were just like, this is just crazy. So that was rough. That, you know, that I was like, man, I don't know about all that.
And then, we start going around the town right, outside of the Gates of Durado Beach, which is like this community. And there was not much to do there in terms of downtown. There's no downtown. There are no movie theaters. There are no shops really at all. It's just this sort of like community. And there's like an awesome walking and biking trail and, you know, there are restaurants within, it's an odd thing to describe. Imagine a beautiful place where there are some restaurants, there are some nice residences, a golf course, a beach, and it's all at 10 out of 11, out of 10 nicest possible place you could ever live on the planet earth, but that's it there's nothing else, right? And when you venture outside of that, there's you know, Dorado is not, you know, compared to Dorado Beach, it's a very rundown town. And I don't mean that in a bad way. I just mean compared to Dorado Beach, it's nowhere near as nice, you know? And the shops, there's a little shop area, but not really. There's one movie theater, and I'm just sitting here thinking to myself, man, I don't know, I might move here and go nuts.
You know, like there's nothing to do. Now, if you go over to, and I believe this is where Tai Lopez lives, he lives in St. Regis over in what's it called? The, oh, what is it called? Oh man, it's escaping me. It's escaping me. Now I've got to open my computer and..., Rio Grande! Rio Grande, okay. Is it Rio Grande? Yeah. Rio Grande. And yeah, it's Rio Grande, and so that is basically like an undeveloped Dorado, and I didn't go there. This is just what I was talking about. But basically, it was like, Dorado where, you know, there were nice places, very nice real estate, but not as much, you know, even less of the developed aspect of Dorado Beach. And what I got from the real estate agents was, that's what they're trying to do there. That's what they're trying to do.
They're trying to turn it over the next several years into Dorado Beach, but the real estate there is super cheap. Like you can get a mansion there for like nothing. So I was like, well, maybe I should go over there. But then, you know, I was told by some people like, well, yeah, you can, but you think there's not a lot here in Dorado. There's nothing in Rio Grande, like nothing. And I was like, ah, you know, and it just kept coming.
And, and here's, I want to wrap this up, cause this is a pretty long podcast, but here's where I want to sort of land the plane here. And, again, I want you to understand, I only spent a couple of weeks there. Well, actually, let me tell you about this COVID thing before I ever land the plane.
So we go back, and we're supposed to, and this is where things went really south for me. And I realized really what it would be like to live there and not know Spanish. And if you're gonna move to Puerto Rico, you've got to learn Spanish. Gotta learn Spanish. Well, we're supposed to fly back. Now. I didn't realize that we didn't need a COVID test to fly back to the U.S. I didn't realize that. So there you have a doctor that's at the Ritz-Carlton that comes to your door. So we schedule COVID tests. He comes, gives us COVID tests. We're positive. We're fricking positive. Now I had no idea, right? Like I was lifting weights, hitting PRS. Like I was fine. And I just thought the food was a bit bland at the Ritz. I realized I had no taste or smell from COVID.
But we test positive, and all of a sudden, it turned into a nightmare because I'm paying like three grand a night at the Ritz, which, I was like, all right, it's fine. You know, I'm rich. Why do I work so hard? Why do I do all this stuff? If I can't enjoy a $3,000 a night hotel? Well, and I was trying to get over my limiting beliefs and, you know, thinking back to when I delivered pizza for seven years, Oh my God, three grand for a hotel? And I was like, wait a minute. This is why I work so hard. If I can't, why do I work so hard to build up a multi-million dollar company if I can't spend three grand a night at a hotel? So, you know, and obviously, we were only there for a few nights because or not, well, actually it was more than three grand. It was like five grand, but then it turned into three grand 'cause the Easter weekend ended. But anyway, so we're there, and keep in mind, think about this.
We had to quarantine in this room. Now you might say, because I've seen some comments on social about, "Oh, poor you, Dan. You had to quarantine the Ritz Carlton." Okay. Let me paint a picture for you. You're at a hotel where all of a sudden, now, keep in mind you're paying three grand a night. All of a sudden, you have no room service, or sorry, you have no housekeeping. You have no real food, only the room service menu. You have no clean sheets. Nobody can clean your room. I understand you can clean it for you. You can't leave the room. You all the things, and keep mind, a hotel does not have normal stuff you find at home. So all the stuff they put in there, it runs out. You have no laundry service. You see what I'm saying? Like it gets real bad, real quick. It gets real rough real quick. Okay? Yes, sure, the room architecturally is nice. But past that from a practical standpoint, it kind of becomes a nightmare, and it was a small Villa. And when I say Villa, it was basically the size of a large hotel room. It wasn't like this whole thing, you know?
And so I struggled to get exercise. I mean, I was doing bodyweight stuff and all that. And plus I was like, well, I got COVID. Maybe I should chill out. You know, it was challenging. Now here's the other thing I have to take medicine when I eat because I have an issue with my pancreas. So if I don't take these pills, when I eat and you can get them over the counter, their digestive enzymes. But if you don't take them, then I have like insane pain, right? Like bedridden pain. Well, I ran out of these pills. Now we tried to like, keep in mind, we couldn't communicate with anybody past hotel staff because nobody spoke English. I mean, we would try to get Uber eats because we wanted something different, and it was all in Spanish.
And like, it was just challenging. And you know, so we ... I lost my train of thought. Oh yeah. So, there we are, and I don't have my pills, and so I can't order them on Amazon because they don't get there anywhere near in time. There was a shop, locally that was a shop. I had to call a real estate agent that was gracious enough to show us around and say like, Hey, can you call up the shop and speak to them in Spanish? And you know, he did. And so we overnighted the pills. I'm like, all right, we figured it out. We overnighted the pills to the room. Well, guess what? Four days go by. We don't have the pills. And I'm just in terrible pain, right? I can't taste anything, the food that I do eat like I'm barely eating, and it was bad.
And so what we did was we scheduled, you know, we were trying to schedule our flight back and, you know, we had to get another test, and the doctor says, he's going to show up at nine. He shows up at one. He says we'll get our results. And it was, and eventually we, you know, they say that it was a 14-day quarantine, but then we find out, no, they changed it to 10. And so we're like, wait a minute. We're at ten days, and we're getting out of here, screw this. We're gone. Okay. I can't deal with it anymore. So I basically told the manager, listen, I'm out. And so we got on, we got on a Southwest plane because they don't require a negative COVID test. And according to the CDC, ten days is fine. So I said, well, look, I'm outta here. So we got on the plane, came back, and that's where I sort of said to myself, okay. So if something happens right, and I don't speak Spanish, I'm screwed. Like literally, I'm screwed. And that put it into perspective for me.
And then let me land the plane here, when it was all said and done, yes, beautiful country, some amazing people, some very, not so amazing people. But that's any country, that's any city, that's any place on earth. Overall, if I was older, especially retirement age, it probably would be the number one place I would want to live, especially if I'm only paying 4% tax. However, at this point in my life, no, I can't do it. I'd rather pay the taxes. And again, Jason Capital. He lives at the Ritz. He loves it. Okay? And then he spends the other six months in, I think, California. So, you know, again, and he's my age, and he loves it. It's different strokes for different folks. For me, I can't do it. It's just not my style. Okay?
So I hope this podcast has sort of given you some food for that. And I know it wasn't very detailed. And I know I was only there for a couple of weeks, but hopefully, it gives you a little bit of information so that if you're, if there were any deal breakers in there, you don't spend thousands and thousands of dollars to get on a plane and go check it out for yourself. If there weren't any deal-breakers, let me just say that you should, if you're considering it, you don't take anything I'm saying for anything. Go over there and check it out for yourself. See if you like it. Don't go during Easter and Spring break. That was bad on me. I didn't even look at the calendar but do go look yourself.
But here's, here's the final straw. You know, I talked to my ex-wife, and I said, "Hey, would you consider moving out here? I'll buy you a house. I'll move you out," et cetera, et cetera. And the conversation had gone back and forth about that potentially being a thing. And then she says, "Well, I tell you what. I don't really know if I want to do that. How about I fly out one week per month," right? I'll take Bruce, and we'll come out there for an entire week, once per month. And I was like, all right, I can deal with that. But then, after all that happened, and I was on the flight back, I said to myself, wait a minute, what is the reason I'm considering moving to Puerto Rico?
I had to be honest with myself, to make more money, to have more money. The one thing I don't need more of. The one thing that I have an overabundance of, a complete surplus of, in my life. Why? Because nobody likes paying exorbitant. And trust me, I don't like paying, I like paying taxes, but I don't like paying an exorbitant amount and an unreasonable amount of taxes. And with the new administration that that's in, whether you like them or don't like them there, if you're an entrepreneur and you're successful, they are going to take it to you in an even more unreasonable way from a tax perspective. So nobody likes that because you work hard for your money, blood, sweat, tears, you do things at 99% of the population is not willing to do not mentally strong enough to do, that don't have the willpower, and then they punish you for it.
So that's a whole different conversation. But at the end of the day, even after all of that, I still have a lot of money. And I think I took that for granted because, at the end of the day, the reason I was considering moving there was to save more to essentially have more money. And then I said to myself, well, that means that I'm going to see my son a lot less granted. One week a month is, I guess, a reasonable amount of time, but I'm going to see him a lot less than I do now for what? For money. I'm going to see a lot less than I do now and live in a place that I'm not really that comfortable, for what? Money. One thing I have enough of.
And if you're considering moving to Puerto Rico for the 4% tax rate, you probably have enough money as well. You probably have an abundance of money in your life as well. And I said to myself if I want more money, why don't I just make more money? Do the best I can on taxes. I have a great CPA and see my son live my life. My feet city in the world is St. Pete. So I came back, and I said, that's it. I'm, no, I love St. Pete. This is where I'm comfortable. This is where I like to live. I love my son. I don't want to see him a second less, especially for money. I'm not moving to Puerto Rico. That's where I landed the plane. That's where I made my decision. And I've been literally looking. I've been going and seeing condos in downtown St. Pete and looking at what I want to buy and I'm committed. So that right there, ladies and gentlemen, at 41 minutes and 27 seconds is my assessment of Puerto Rico and my determination to stay in the United States.
Now keep in mind, please, because I had a couple of people message me. They were very sensitive about my, you know, minor criticisms that I mentioned. Keep in mind if you are from Puerto Rico, I understand that, you know, you love your country. Everybody loves their country. I get that, but look, I'm not throwing any shade. I'm not trying to be negative at all. It is not for me. And that is the opposite for other people. For some people, it may be for them, but for me, it's not for me. That's not to say it's bad. And, I was, I believe, in this podcast, I was very clear on why I fought or understood some of the negatives that happened. I can only relay my experience. I can only tell you what happened when I was there. That's it.
So whether you're from Puerto Rico or you're not from Puerto Rico or whatever, you know, please take this podcast with a grain of salt because I was only there for two weeks. It's impossible for me to give an accurate assessment of Puerto Rico without going there, I would say, for at least a month or two, you know? So take the information, put it in your brain, scramble it around and spit out whatever type of egg you like. But for me, based on everything, I'm not going to go there. However, when I get older, definitely gonna take a second look, hundred percent. Plus, it'll probably be a little bit more developed in certain areas by that point.
Alright, well, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode, and please subscribe, tell other peoples about the podcast, yadda, yadda, and I'll see you in the next one.