Why Benji Films’ Founder Left Canada for Dubai With GenZone After a $1.5M Annual Tax Bill

“GenZone Co-Founder and Co-CEO Kevin with Benji Films CEO Benjamin Lussier.”

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Image: GenZone Co-Founder and Co-CEO Kevin with Benji Films CEO Benjamin Lussier.

Plenty of founders talk about leaving high-tax countries. Benjamin Lussier, the CEO of Benji Films, actually did it, and completed the move in under three weeks. He is not a lifestyle entrepreneur chasing better weather. He built a company with real headcount, real clients, and real revenue, and when the numbers in Canada stopped working, he acted on a decision most people only discuss.

This is the story of what pushed him to leave, how the math changed once he looked at Dubai, and how GenZone handled the formation, banking, and compliance that made the move possible.

Who Benji is, and what Benji Films does

Benji built Benji Films, a growth marketing and video production company, from nothing. Over two years he scaled it from $5,000 a month to more than $200,000 a month, and from two employees to one hundred. The client list includes names like DJI and Honda.

This was never a side project looking for a tax break. It was an operating business with genuine scale behind it, which is what makes his relocation different from the usual story of a solo founder chasing a lower rate abroad.

The tax bill that changed everything

Running two to four million dollars in annual profit, Benji was paying roughly $1.5 to $1.6 million a year to the Canadian government. “I was paying literally two Lambos in taxes a year,” he said.

The frustration was not only the size of the number. It was the sense that the system worked against the people building the economy it relied on. “They say they want to encourage entrepreneurs, but then as soon as you’re an entrepreneur and you make millions, the first thing you start to do is pay more taxes.”

His view of the country’s tax structure was blunt. “Canada is good for salaried people who don’t have businesses,” he said. For founders generating serious profit, he felt the math simply stopped adding up.

The trigger came on a trip to the Bahamas, where he was visiting a friend who paid no taxes. Returning to Canada, the contrast was hard to ignore. A mutual connection mentioned Dubai, Benji looked up GenZone, and within an hour of the first call he had made up his mind.

Finding Dubai, and doing the math

In Dubai, corporate tax applies only above a profit threshold of AED 375,000, roughly USD 102,000, and is capped at 9% even beyond that. Set against what he had been paying in Canada, the difference was immediate.

“9% taxes for a service like that, I don’t mind at all,” he said. He also saw the timing as an advantage rather than luck. “I think I’m lucky to have done the move right now, because I know that Canada is going to do this in the future. They want their share of everything.”

Three weeks after that first call, Benji was in Dubai. The company was formed, banking was open, and he was already referring other Canadian founders to GenZone. The speed came not from rushing the process but from the fact that there was little left to deliberate once the numbers were clear.

What he found in his first weeks

Benji had only been in Dubai a short time when he shared these observations, but they were specific and drawn from experience rather than expectation.

On the safety misconceptions he hears most often from Canadians: “The main thing I hear is about women, ‘Oh, it’s not safe for women.’ It’s actually the safest country in the world. There are women walking at 3 a.m. alone here. Compared to Canada, I would be way more scared for a woman to walk alone at 4 a.m. than in Dubai.”

On the standard of service he encountered, and how it shaped his thinking about his own company: “The quality of service here that I want to reproduce in my business, the way people respect their customers, the way people treat their employees and colleagues at work, I haven’t seen that in Canada. I know that being here, my service is going to get better and better.”

On the culture around visible success, recalling a client meeting back in Montreal: “Making money here is good. In Montreal, I made the mistake of pulling up with my Audi R8 to certain clients. They saw a 23-year-old making too much money and thought, he’s probably a scammer. Here in Dubai, people are going to be proud of you.”

And on the wider entrepreneurial environment: “Even if there were no tax advantages, Dubai, if you’re in the business of people, this place will level you up to the max. You’ll learn a lot more from other entrepreneurs who are willing to share.”

Built to scale: how Benji runs a 100-person company

For four years, Benji ran his business alone, handling every shoot, script, and client call himself. He earned around $20,000 a year and was going nowhere fast. A mentor told him to learn ads, marketing, sales, and automation, and he did.

The first month after launching a paid ad strategy and hiring a commission-only closer, revenue jumped from $5,000 to $100,000. The month after that, it doubled again.

Growth created a new problem. Benji was still the only person delivering the work, and the business was winning clients it could not properly serve. “At that time I needed to delegate, because otherwise the business can’t grow anymore,” he said. So he hired directors, scriptwriters, and ads managers, and kept scaling.

His approach to hiring, developed while building a 100-person team, is direct. “Hire slow, fire fast. If you think it takes a week to hire, take three.” He weighs small signals as much as answers. “The way they dress, the way they show up, how they talk, are they polite? If they’re late, are they finding excuses, or do they own it?”

He no longer runs interviews himself. “There are people in my business I’ve never talked to. I see them on Slack. I have a hundred people. Some of them I’ve never met.” His role now is narrower by design. “At a certain level, the only thing you want to do is make big decisions. You’re not even operating anymore. You just take decisions.”

The referral effect

Benji found GenZone through a personal referral, and the pattern has continued since. He has already referred other Canadian founders, all of whom are now clients themselves.

“Your service was amazing. I got referred, and I referred someone else. It’s like a spiderweb,” he said.

What other founders can take from Benji’s move

Benji’s story points to a few lessons that go beyond his own numbers. Tax exposure compounds quickly at real profit levels, and it is worth running the comparison before it becomes unavoidable rather than after.

Speed matters too. His entire relocation, from first call to fully operational in Dubai, took three weeks, not because the process was rushed but because there was nothing left to weigh once the numbers were clear.

And a service culture built for growth, whether in hiring, delivery standards, or client experience, tends to travel with the founder wherever the business is based.

Conclusion

Benji’s move reflects a broader shift among founders running real operating businesses, not just digital ones. When the tax math and the growth trajectory stop lining up at home, Dubai offers a structural alternative, provided the formation, banking, and compliance are handled properly from day one.

For Benji, that groundwork took three weeks. For the Canadian founders he has since referred, it started with the same phone call to GenZone.

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