It's theft.

The writing is on the wall: the West is in decline. New laws are punishing those of us escaping to fairer shores, instead of our leaders who pushed our nations into this state of decay.

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📖 ESTIMATED READ TIME: 5 minutes 35 seconds

The ravaging of Rome.

As the Roman Empire unravelled, its once unshakable marble foundations of power and wealth started to fracture.

In the face of crumbling borders and a shrinking treasury, the empire sought desperate measures to prevent the lifeblood of its prosperity—its people and their wealth—from fleeing. One of Rome’s many solutions was designed not only to collect revenue for the state, but also to punish those attempting to leave the empire with their riches intact.

Officially known as the portorium, this tax targeted merchants, landowners, and aristocrats who sought to relocate to stabler regions. As barbarians pressed from the north and corruption bled the core of Rome’s governing institutions, many affluent citizens saw an escape as a way to preserve their fortunes. But Rome, desperate to prevent a mass exodus, imposed the exit tax to make leaving costly—both economically and socially.

Citizens attempting to sell their property and move abroad faced severe taxes levied not just on their assets but also on the transfer of money out of Roman territories. It was a way to ensure that wealth built within Rome stayed within Rome, even as the empire crumbled.

The burden of the portorium fell disproportionately on the wealthy elite, the very citizens Rome once relied on to fund its military campaigns and public works. By the late empire, many of these citizens had completely lost faith in Rome’s ability to protect them. As a result, some tried hiding their wealth, while others sought sanctuary in prosperous provinces or outside the empire altogether.

The penalty for evading the exit tax was severe—confiscation of all property, exile, or even execution for those caught engaging in covert schemes.

For those who stayed, the exit tax fostered resentment and fear. It sent a clear message that Rome was no longer the protector of its people, but a ruler desperate to cling to whatever of its power remained. As tax rates escalated, fewer citizens could afford to escape the instability that gripped the empire. Even skilled craftsmen, whose work was once in high demand across Rome, could not flee due to the sheer expenditure of moving their livelihoods elsewhere.

Rome's intentions were clear. If it could not keep its citizens’ loyalty, it would, at the very least, keep their wealth.

Our crumbling empires.

Whenever an empire is crumbles, one of its final acts is almost always the desperate attempt to cling to the remaining vestiges of its wealth.

It happened in the 1920s during the German Weimar Republic, when the government implemented controls to prevent capital from haemorrhaging out of the nation.

It occurred again at the end of the Vietnam War as Vietnam’s communist government seized assets to prevent citizens from fleeing with them.

Again, capital seizures were implemented by Iran’s Islamic government after the Shah was overthrown in 1979.

And it happened during the final days of ancient Rome, before the empire collapsed completely.

Unfortunately, this is also taking place all over the West in the present day.

In the United States, for example, citizens who renounce their citizenship, or give up a long-term residency permit to move elsewhere, are responsible for paying an expatriation tax for the privilege of leaving.

One of the worst taxes on the planet, it requires a person to pay an unrealised capital gains tax on the global value of their assets, based on the imaginary scenario if they were to sell those assets the day they expatriated.

Probably the most publicised case of this is that of Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, who reportedly paid Uncle Sam $30-mil-plus to renounce his US citizenship in 2011.

Trudeau’s authoritarian kingdom also has an exit tax that works similarly. Citizens or residents who disconnect themselves as tax residents of Canada must calculate the value of assets as if they were hypothetically sold at that point, and pay up to a 16.5 percent capital gains tax on that value.

To complete the unholy trifecta of greedy Western nations, Australia has had an exit tax that has existed since 1985. It mandates that anyone ceasing to be an Australian resident for tax purposes pays up to 45 percent on the unrealised gains of any assets owned at the time.

All-in-all, terrible stuff. Unfortunately for us, this trend looks to be on the rise in much of the West.

Just this past week, the United Kingdom discussed implementing an exit tax on residents leaving the country, which will likely be passed into law in the near future.

This will happen in response to the large swathe of high-net individuals leaving the UK in recent years, expected to number above 500,000 in total by 2028. Norway’s current exit tax was implemented for similar reasons.

Alongside the UK, the Netherlands, Finland, France, Hungary, Belgium, Sweden, and Ireland, among several others, have all recently discussed similar measures to tax people on their assets if they choose to leave.

This is nothing more than legalised theft.

Especially when you consider what people get in return for coughing up these ludicrous exit taxes to their governments.

On practically every single metric—education, health, individual sovereignty, speech, cost of living—our nations in the West are becoming demonstrably worse places to live.

Yet despite this fact, we’re paying higher taxes than ever before for the “privilege” of living there. In places like the Nordics, Belgium, and others, citizens already pay over 50 percent of their incomes in taxes to live in degrading nations.

People should have every right to leave their country when living there is becoming demonstrably worse with each passing year. In fact, they should be encouraged to.

Why support your country if it no longer cares about your future prosperity?

Why stay if things are brighter elsewhere?

Unfortunately, our leaders have a different view. They wish to punish us for leaving our home countries behind, when it’s they who are solely responsible for orchestrating the demise of the places we grew up in.

Places that not too long ago, were some of the most privileged places on Earth to live in.

As always, it’s we, the people, who are punished for our politicians' incompetence.

The simple truth is this: The West is clearly failing.

If it weren’t, those who rule us wouldn’t need to implement controls to seize the hard-earned labour of those who are leaving in droves for fairer shores.

But it is. So they are.

Within the next decade, places like Australia, the United States, Canada, and much of Europe will likely be shells of their former selves. They already are, but they’ll increasingly become places that most of us probably won’t want to live in anymore, let alone be where we’ll want to retire, or raise children.

We are literally living on the carcass of a dead empire. One that’s being picked clean by vultures with enough good sense to scavenge the remnants before all that’s left is a bare skeleton of what once was.

If you’re not yet paying attention to the fate of the West, I hope this newsletter is what changes that. Even better, I hope it’s the catalyst that finally makes you prepare for the collapse of our empire.

Because trust me, the time to prepare is now.

To create a backup plan while you still can.

To take steps to acquire a second passport while it’s still relatively easy to do so.

To set up residency where the future looks bright.

Or to leave before our leaders make it evermore crippling to do so than it already is.

Tick tock.

Tick tock.

Tick tock…

Written by Leon Hill.
Founder, Anticitizen.

This newsletter is for educational purposes, and is not financial advice. Please do your own research, and consider risks involved with investing or purchasing any asset.