Accountant Explains | How to Not Pay Tax Again (It's Not What You Think) [Special EP01]

How do you legally pay zero tax, forever? How do you legally make money and still keep the tax office completely in the dark? To get to the bottom of this, I got on a plane and flew all the way to the United Arab Emirates. I sat down with accounting firms, one after another, and I went through property development projects after projects in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. And in the end, I really did find a near-perfect solution. This setup is tailor-made for people who feel crushed by Australia’s sky-high personal income tax. For people whose property investment profits in Australia are sliced away by stamp duty, land tax and a whole range of other charges. For people whose property cash flow is always negative because interest rates are high and rental yields are low. And of course, for anyone who wants to spread their assets globally, and stay ahead of CRS 2.0 and AML Tranche 2. You won’t find this information on Google. You won’t get it out of any AI search. What I’m about to show you comes from sitting in real meeting rooms with more than a dozen accounting firms in Singapore and the UAE, and then putting together the best pathway step by step. Just in consultation fees, flights and accommodation, I’ve spent over thirty thousand dollars. On top of that, this topic is extremely sensitive. There’s a real chance this video gets taken down at some point. So whoever watches it to the end is the one who really benefits. If you click away halfway through, you’re wasting the time and effort I’ve poured into making this episode. Alright, let’s get started.

It's been about a year and a half since I first wanted to make this episode. I live in Australia. The real marginal personal tax rate here is over 50%. Capital gains are added to personal income and taxed together. In the past few years, the government has kept finding new ways to raise taxes and slap on random charges. Ordinary people can barely lift their heads; life feels tough. Think about it: who would want to work for 180 days a year for the government?

My VISION Members on the AusPropertyStrategy channel all invest in Australian property. Whether they're locals or from overseas, there are tax barriers just to get started. And when they finally make money, they're hit with another round of tax. So, is there any way to legally pay no tax while still having income that doesn't get reported to the tax office?

Singapore

After doing my homework, the first place I locked onto was Singapore. This was about a year ago. I didn’t hesitate—I bought a ticket and flew there. I went around to five different accounting firms and sat down with each of them. Some were run by Chinese accountants, some by Indians, some by local Singaporeans. I discovered a lot of interesting things, and it completely opened up my eyes.

In Singapore, the marginal personal income tax rate is 24%. There are all kinds of deductions and reliefs, and they only tax income sourced from Singapore. Income you earn from other countries is tax-free, even if you transfer it into Singapore. There’s no capital gains tax and no tax on dividends. So if you’re a Singapore tax resident, investing in US stocks is especially attractive. If you’re not a Singapore tax resident, personal income from Singapore doesn’t get those concessions—you’re simply taxed at a flat 15%.

For companies, the rules are different again. Corporate tax is 17%, and there are various deductions and incentives. For example, some startups can get their first few years' tax-free, or have their initial income exempt. Local companies and foreign companies with permanent establishments are basically treated the same.

Singapore taxes companies on worldwide income, but as long as foreign profits aren’t brought back into Singapore, there are ways to keep them exempt. Once the company has paid its tax, any dividends it pays out are tax-free in the hands of shareholders—no extra personal income tax. That’s completely different to Australia. Here, a company might pay 30% tax first, then when it pays dividends, they’re adjusted against your personal tax rate. If your personal rate is 45%, you still have to top up the extra 15% on that dividend. Every time I talk about this, I feel sick. Both are developed countries—how can the systems be so far apart?

At first, everything about Singapore looked pretty good. But a few issues made me hesitate. First, to set up a company there, you generally need at least one Singaporean director. That makes running it remotely quite painful. Second, the ongoing costs of maintaining a company aren’t low. Third, for foreigners, buying property in Singapore is extremely tough. When you buy, you pay Buyer’s Stamp Duty (BSD) at a progressive 1–5%, and on top of that, Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty (ABSD) of 60%. You heard that right—not 6%, sixty. If it’s not your own home, you then pay annual Property Tax at a progressive 12–36% of the market rent. When you sell, the seller also pays Seller’s Stamp Duty (SSD) of 4–16%, with higher rates if you’ve held the property for a shorter period.

Unless you’re a citizen of a country that has a free trade agreement with Singapore—like the US, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein—and can be treated like a Singapore citizen when buying property, everyone else gets these taxes. That basically slams the door shut on people from most countries who want to bring money into Singapore to invest in real estate. You’re left with pretty much one path: financial assets, like US stocks. But then comes the fourth—and worst—problem. It’s also the final straw that breaks the camel’s back: CRS 2.0.

CRS 2.0

CRS is a tax reporting framework used by a lot of countries. Its main job is to check whether their own residents are making money overseas, and if they are, to pull that income back into the local tax net. The full name is the Common Reporting Standard. Most OECD countries are in it, and that includes China and Singapore. The US and Taiwan are not part of CRS.

So how does it actually work? Banks and share brokers in participating countries report the balances and investment income of both personal and company accounts to their local tax office—things like dividends, interest, capital gains. The tax office then uploads all that data into the CRS system.

Each country’s tax office logs in, looks up information on its own tax residents—including overseas companies where the ultimate beneficial owner is a resident—downloads the data, does the calculations, and then sends you a tax bill to “top up” what you owe. You can think of it as a global tax version of Skynet.

Take Singapore as an example. If you’re not a Singapore tax resident and you go there to open a bank account, they have to do KYC. During that process, they’ll figure out you’re, say, an Australian tax resident. Opening an IBKR account in Singapore works the same way. Once that’s clear, your name goes onto their internal list. Every year, your account balance, your interest, your dividends and so on are reported by the bank or broker into the CRS system. Then the Australian tax office pulls that data and comes after you for tax. That’s how it works across all CRS countries—they swap information with each other. So the money and profits you keep in other countries can still end up being taxed back in your home country.

The new CRS 2.0 that’s rolling out is even tougher. Previously, as long as you became a Singapore tax resident, Singapore wouldn’t report you under CRS, and Australia had no idea how much you were making there.

But under CRS 2.0, if you’re both a Singapore tax resident and an Australian tax resident—for example, you hold an Australian passport but live in Singapore for more than 183 days—then Australia will report you, and Singapore will also report you. Double reporting, and then they exchange that data. So you can no longer “hide behind” the label of “Singapore tax resident” and keep your income known only to Singapore. For Australians, assets in Singapore become totally transparent. Under CRS rules, they can even look back up to five years. And the key point is this: Singapore is very keen to cooperate with Australia. Once that’s the case, there’s really no way around it.

From 2021 to 2024, Singapore was the first choice for many wealthy families setting up family offices. The main reasons were privacy and the tax system. Through 13O or 13U structures, investing via Singapore comes with a lot of tax incentives. When setting up a family office, people usually use complex structures to hide the ultimate beneficial owner. But under the CRS 2.0 framework, those layers are basically fully penetrated. Trying to stay invisible is no longer realistic.

If more than half of a Singapore family office’s income is passive—things like interest, dividends, and distributions—it’s classified as a Passive Non-Financial Entity, or Passive NFE. When the bank opens the account, does KYC and the ongoing checks, it must identify the real controlling persons and real beneficiaries, and record their nationality. So when they report to CRS, those names can’t be hidden.

And it’s not just Singapore. Even traditional tax havens like the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands have been “seen through” in the same way. That’s why a lot of industry insiders have already moved their family offices from Hong Kong and Singapore to the UAE, where privacy protection is much stronger.

After this series of crackdowns, I went back to the drawing board and started looking again for a better tax haven and investment haven.

I realised there are a few big groups with these needs: People who want to move money offshore, protect their privacy, and reduce tax. So my mission became clear: I had to find a place with strong privacy protection, where CRS 2.0 can’t easily penetrate, with very low tax, and where you can also invest in local real estate and actually make money. In the end, I chose the UAE.

If you have any questions about property investment, please book a free 15-minute discovery call on our website. If you want a team offering one-stop service to help you build a property investment portfolio, achieve financial freedom and retire early, join our VISION Membership by booking a 30-minute obligation-free discovery session to start with. Or to keep it simple, our data-driven buyer's agency service can help. We buy and manage properties for our clients anywhere in Australia. Links to the service are in the description below.

UAE

I recently flew to the UAE to do some field research. I’d always thought it was just a small regional country in the Middle East. I didn’t expect that, whether you look at living standards, economic prospects, how open the policies are, privacy protection or tax, it's one of the best countries in the world.

The UAE is a federation made up of several sheikh families and their territories. In a way, it’s similar to Australia’s eight states and territories, except the UAE has seven emirates. Abu Dhabi has the largest land area and the strongest economy, with oil making up about 45% of its GDP. When Dubai’s economy was badly hit in the past, it was Abu Dhabi that stepped in to rescue it.

Dubai, on the other hand, is strong in commerce and finance. Oil is less than 4% of its economy. Its industries also include tourism, trade and property. By total GDP, Dubai is only about 11% of Abu Dhabi. So Abu Dhabi’s ruler becoming president and Dubai’s ruler becoming prime minister makes perfect sense.

Comparing the two cities: Abu Dhabi is the political capital, oil powerhouse and a base for old money. Dubai is the commercial centre, tourist hotspot and an international city. Both are very different, and both have investment opportunities.

Among developed economies, the UAE’s population growth is unusually high. Over the past five years, Abu Dhabi’s population has grown by 33% in total, and Dubai’s by 21%.

So why are so many new migrants moving to the UAE?

First, there’s no capital gains tax and no personal income tax. That means price growth from your property investments, rental income, share market gains, interest on savings, even your salary—none of it is taxed. Every cent is yours to keep and use. Just on this point alone, it leaves Western countries far behind.

Second, the UAE’s currency, the dirham, is pegged to the US dollar, so compared with other currencies, its exchange rate is more stable. 100 dirhams equals 27 US dollars, 42 Australian dollars. Using dirhams for international payments and settlements is very convenient.

Third, the Golden Visa. If you invest 2 million dirhams, about 540K USD or 850K AUD, you can get a 10-year multi-entry Golden Visa, and you can sponsor three generations of your family. For people who want to do business in the Middle East or want their kids to attend international schools at a lower cost, this is a huge attraction.

Fourth, capital movement. The UAE doesn’t restrict money flowing in or out at all. It’s not like Australia, where bringing money in means source-of-funds checks and reporting back to the origin country.

Fifth, as long as certain basic conditions are met, both company accounts and personal accounts in the UAE don’t get reported under CRS. This is a big deal.

And when you buy property in the UAE, some developers will accept almost any form of payment except cash—they’ll even take cryptocurrency.

UAE Property

When we talk about property in the UAE, you really have to start with one key turning point: 2002. Before 2002, foreigners simply couldn’t buy property there. At best, you could get a 99-year lease.

Then, in May 2002, the foreigners were allowed to buy freehold property in certain areas of Dubai. That one change completely altered Dubai’s future. Global capital poured in. Property development took off. Iconic projects like the Burj Al Arab and Palm Jumeirah rose out of the sand. Dubai went from being a regional port city to one of the world’s most talked-about real estate investment hotspots.

Abu Dhabi opened up 17 years later. In April 2019, the Abu Dhabi government amended its property laws and finally allowed foreigners to buy freehold in specific investment zones. Before that, foreigners there could only get a leasehold.

On this trip, I visited every part of Abu Dhabi and Dubai and studied their property markets in detail. What I found is that the underlying logic in the UAE is actually very similar to Australia. The way you research, choose a project, buy, then later resell or lease it out—the rules are pretty much the same. Supply and demand directly drive price movements. That holds perfectly true in the UAE. The difference is on the supply side: most land releases are controlled by big government-backed developers like Dubai Holding and Aldar. Supply is basically in the government's hands.

On the demand side, about 85% of buyers and tenants aren’t locals. They’re people who come to Dubai to live and work, consistent with the fact that around 85% of the population are foreigners. So in many communities, it’s completely normal for 80% of the homes to be rentals. In Australia, it’s the opposite. I only feel comfortable recommending a suburb to our members when rental properties are under 40%.

Price differences are also far more dramatic. It’s quite common for ultra-high-end homes to be worth dozens of times more than entry-level stock in the same city.

In the UAE, typical gross yields on apartments are around 6–8%. Houses sit roughly in the 5–6% range. If you do short-term rentals, returns can quite easily go north of 10%. Stamp duty in Dubai is 4%, and in Abu Dhabi 2%, with no extra surcharges for foreigners. There’s no land tax, but there are service charges paid to the government, calculated by Dirham per square feet and set for each project depending on its level of luxury and location. All up, the annual holding cost of a property in the UAE sits around 1–2% of the property value. In Australia, it’s more like 1.5–3%. So on this measure, the UAE is already very competitive.

Over the past three years, Dubai property prices have been rising by around 15% per year. Abu Dhabi saw about 16% growth in 2024 and is tracking around 17% for 2025. Add to that a system where there’s effectively no tax on that growth or on your rental income, and the advantage becomes obvious.

If you buy off the plan, you can even sell before handover, which creates opportunities for faster profits. Holding long term to enjoy strong capital growth plus solid cash flow is also a very attractive path.

The Logic of Investing in the UAE

By now, the logic of investing in the UAE is basically all on the table. Let me walk you through a typical use case.

First, your money needs to get into the UAE. For many people, the most straightforward way is simply to buy a property. Real estate isn’t treated as a financial asset in the same way shares or funds are, so it sits outside the scope of CRS. Locals and overseas buyers are treated almost the same—there aren’t extra property taxes just because you’re foreign. Before a new property settles, you can choose to resell it. Or you can wait for completion and hold it.

The capital gains from selling, or the rental income while you hold, will usually end up in a local UAE bank account. This is where things start to involve CRS 2.0, KYC, and how tax residency is defined. How to handle those parts properly really needs detailed, professional guidance. Some people choose to move the funds into other international accounts, depending on their own situation and the rules in their home country.

Then comes the next question: what do you do with the money that’s already out of the UAE? Well, if you are an Australian citizen, and you don't get the money back to Australia, there won't be an issue. If you really have to transfer the money back to Australia for any reason, you can still explain that the money is from the sale of a property in the UAE, so it is legal. But if you have capital gains, the ATO may send you a tax bill. So, don't send the money back. But, exactly how that’s assessed—and how it affects your tax position—depends on your personal circumstances and needs proper legal and tax advice.

Quite a few of our clients run international businesses. For example, one client has operations and bank accounts in multiple countries and pays tax locally in each place. Our suggestion in cases like that is often to look at setting up a holding company in the UAE, and then consolidating global income under that entity.

The UAE has a special setup with more than 40 free zones. Each free zone is a bit like a concession area with its own territory and its own legal framework. The best-known ones are DMCC in Dubai, which applies international commercial standards, and ADGM in Abu Dhabi, which is based on UK common law. That means company assets and any future disputes can be handled under clear, well-recognised legal systems.

A lot of people mistakenly think UAE companies don’t pay any tax at all. That’s not quite right. Whether it’s a mainland UAE company or a free zone company, the standard corporate tax rate is 9%. The difference is that, in some free zones, specific types of business can enjoy very generous tax incentives or even full exemption on qualifying income. So when you’re designing a structure, you really need to understand which free zone uses which legal framework and what tax policies apply, so you can find the optimal setup within the rules.

We’ve now built out the full pathway in the UAE: From personal funds landing on the ground, to businesses setting up locally… From establishing onshore or free zone entities, to opening bank accounts and applying for visas…From data-driven market research, to selecting the right property projects, buying, and then dealing with resale, long-term leasing or short-term rentals…

We’ve also added tax-related CRS and AML review and advisory service. Our in-house international CRS and AML specialist has more than ten years’ experience, helping to keep clients’ funds safe and compliant. She worked for the Big Four tax consulting firms in Australia and for Big Four Banks in the CRS and AML divisions. I hope our UAE property division can help more of our VISION Members to diversify and pay zero or close to zero tax.

If you are interested, please click the link in the description below to book a 15-minute free consultation.

Watch the video version of the blog on YouTube.

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