13 ms·

Estonia, the Digital Republic

351 points by jkaljundi 9y ago

shortnamed 9y ago
jou jüri
fijal 9y ago
Just opened a company in Estonia. The experience so far has been incredible. It's not quite the future - all the technologies should exist everywhere etc. It's the present that should have been, but somehow it's not.
- lukasm 9y ago
  Why did you do it in Estonia?
  - fijal 9y ago
    English, stable currency, ability to do stuff online, mature and working banking system. Does not leave many interesting candidates.
    - dejv 9y ago
      What are you using (if you are using anything) for taking credit card payments? Stripe is not available there, right?
      - fijal 9y ago
        Investigating that topic, but taking card payments is not a part of my primary business.
      - logronoide 9y ago
        Stripe is not in Estonia, so we applied to Braintree. It took us a couple of weeks and we were rejected at the beginning, but finally they accepted us. Also 2checkout can be an option too.
        kreetx 9y ago
        It's so unfortunate that Stripe isn't supported in Estonia yet! It would be a major boon given the good reputation Stripe has among developers.
        vilmosi 9y ago
        Maybe it's a regional thing but I never encountered Stripe in the UK/EU. I don't think people know of it.
        ateesdalejr 9y ago
        Stripe is used by https://pythonanywhere.com https://pythonanywhere.com I believe they are based in the UK according to their payment statements.
        wastedhours 9y ago
        On the other hand of anecdata, I'm in the UK, and plenty of people I know have heard of and use it. It's the developer go-to for most projects I've seen, but BT does appeal with Paypal integration.
        toomanybeersies 9y ago
        I've worked with both Braintree and Stripe, and I'm honestly not sure why people harp on about Stripe so much compared to BT. In my experience, they're both super easy to work with.
        randsp 9y ago
        What about Paymill?
        MadQA 9y ago
        Dang, I should go try and reapply, also e-resident, also got rejected pretty quickly. Good to know the guys are open to re-evaluation.
        logronoide 9y ago
    - superplussed 9y ago
      What are the advantages over using Stripe Atlas and having a US Delaware C Corp for $500?
      - dullgiulio 9y ago
        Maybe it needs to be in the EU.
      - fijal 9y ago
        I tried to sign up for stripe atlas in beta and they didn't want me :) More seriously - owning shares in us companies create scary tax implications that require some advice when having us clients. US banking system is stuck is in the 1800s and dealing with it is a very serious pain. US legal system, unlike European is very unfriendly for individuals - its just infeasible to do stuff yourself on a shoestring budget, without hiring professionals.
        adventured 9y ago
        > its just infeasible to do stuff yourself on a shoestring budget, without hiring professionals. Millions of new businesses are started every year in the US on a shoestring and without hiring professionals.
        slededit 9y ago
        For foreign owned companies there are a myriad of complex reporting requirements a US person would never see. Despite not even being a tax form some of these (e.g. FBAR) have penalties of 50% of the unreported amount. It's not something you want to leave to chance.
        forapurpose 9y ago
        > Millions of new businesses are started every year in the US on a shoestring and without hiring professionals. I don't think that's meaningful. There are 320 million people in the U.S., and only a tiny proportion of people anywhere would consider opening their business in another country. That doesn't mean there isn't a high barrier to accessing the U.S. legal system. For example, as we know, well-funded parties often defeat poorer parties by simply threatening legal action, because the poorer party cannot afford to use the legal system.
- puranjay 9y ago
  Curious to know: what's your home country? What are the tax implications for you locally?
  - fijal 9y ago
    Personally none - I pay taxes in my home country and everyone is happy. The company rules (delayed income tax, income tax rate) might be subject to treaty that defines "command and control" - that is if the company is really located in Estonia or is it effectively in your home country? If you have an actual office or co founders from other countries or some other vague "company is actually located in estonia", then there are no tax implications of that, other than your personal income.
- elorant 9y ago
  Can you open a company without visiting the country?
  - fijal 9y ago
    yes, but you cannot open a bank account. You can use holvi (https://about.holvi.com/e-residents/ https://about.holvi.com/e-residents/) but I haven't used it and don't know details on how it differs from a regular bank.
- crypt1d 9y ago
  Me too! I used leapin for the whole process. Never had a more pleasant experience with bureaucratic procedures.
- icey 9y ago
  I'm getting ready to do this but haven't figured out a way to open a bank account there without visiting the country. How did you do that? I saw there's a service that will do it for you but it seems like an expensive monthly fee.
  - logronoide 9y ago
    I opened my company with Leapin. Easy and fast. If you don’t need a bank account and you can live with PayPal you don’t need to go there. I needed a bank account and credit card so I traveled to Tallinn and opened a bank account at LHV. You have to sign the documents at the bank office. I think LHV Bank is working on a remote process with an interview using Skype, but it was not available several months ago. Still, I have faced several issues setting up my small SaaS service: Stripe is not available and my Braintree application was rejected because they did not understand why I wanted to create a company in Estonia! It took me two weeks to explain that I was a nice guy and then everything went fine. I also had issues creating a merchant account in Coinbase, so I had to use Bitpay.
  - jaggederest 9y ago
    To be honest, you should visit the country either way. Estonia is a pretty wonderful place, at least it was when I visited.
  - randsp 9y ago
    I'm in the process of opening remotely a company with Leapin. My first intention was to use Holvi for banking but I realized you need to pay 30€/month if you are a e-resident so I probably will switch to Transferwise Borderless.
- matiasb 9y ago
  I opened a company last year. In my country we can't access Paypal or Stripe and international bank transfers are painful. I had to travel to Estonia because of the KYC stuff from the bank, the rest of the process was completed remotely. Also the deposit insurance in my country is quite low, so saving money in Estonia is a good option for me. I'm using the LHV Bank, they give you a multi-currency account, a great mobile application and also access to different worldwide markets (for investments, etc.).
phil248 9y ago
Just a fun geography tip, you can easily remember the locations of the 3 Baltic states because they go in alphabetical order from North to South. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania.
- asdjasldkjkljd 9y ago
  Really useful when the relative locations of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania come up in conversation which is literally never a single time in my life.
- _acme 9y ago
  Estonia, however, is more Nordic than it is Baltic, other than in geography: its people and language are Finnic (neither Indo-European nor related to Latvian/Lithuanian) and it's been part of Denmark or Sweden for most of its history; there were even Estonian vikings.
  - tikums 9y ago
    That's not quite correct. There were also 'Latvian vikings', the Curonians. Latvia was also ruled by Sweden for centuries. There's not much difference there, apart from language. They were a mix of Baltic tribes, some combination of which formed the modern nation states.
puranjay 9y ago
I keep seeing a ton of ads for starting a company in Estonia. To those who've done it, what are the pros/cons? For the record, I'm based out of India and have been advised to setup in Singapore
- dijit 9y ago
  Well, if you're trading in Europe that's a huge benefit. But also the big selling factor is how much of their governmental services are digitised and unified. It makes dealing with anything like taxes quite convenient. It's quite smart for Estonia to do this because they have quite a lot of brain-drain. Lots of up-and-coming educated Estonians end up leaving the country to persue jobs in Europe due to the lack of companies operating locally. Trasferwise is capitalising on this, but the government sees it as a reason to heavily invest in making companies want to be in Estonia.
  - twfarland 9y ago
    There seems to be a fair bit of tech work here, at least, but the average salary is low, and the personal tax burden (with social tax) is high.
- logronoide 9y ago
  For me, it’s cheaper to run a company in Estonia than my country (an EU country). You don’t pay taxes if you company has benefits. You pay taxes for the dividends only, which makes the company perfect for very early stages. Also, for an international business a company based in Estonia looks more reliable and “techie” than other countries. And this is important if You sell digital goods or services. I think Singapore can be a good place too, but it’s much more complicated for me.
  - vram22 9y ago
    >if you company has benefits. By "benefits" do you mean profits?
    - 9y ago
superdug 9y ago
I might actually have an idea of what the article was talking about, but after reading 5 paragraphs about the road and lawn I just kind of gave up.
- elorant 9y ago
  Well that's New Yorker, they're the kings of long reads.
  - jeron 9y ago
    always good reads though
- twelvechairs 9y ago
  I agree - I prefer dry facts and really dislike the trend of news written like narrative. I usually turn off after the first sentence (invariably an attempt to write like a 19th century novelist) because I know its going to be 10 minutes before i figure out if there's anything of value to me in its content (I acknowledge that sometimes there is and I'll miss out).
  - jfoutz 9y ago
    It is disconcerting for an upstart like the New Yorker of co opt a dickens style. You’d think after 90 years they would realize it is just a fad.
masswerk 9y ago
I know, this may be unpopular in context, but are there any updates on the Estonian ID-cards? News as of November were that they were (temporarily) locked-down [1] and are to be reissued until next March [2] in reaction to the RSA related security flaws [3] in the libraries bundled with the Infineon chip. Is this even an issue, or is everyone using a phone app, instead of the cards, anyway? [1] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/11/03/estonian_e_id_lockdown/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/11/03/estonian_e_id_lockd... [2] http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41858583 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41858583 [3] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/09/security_flaw_i.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/09/security_flaw...
- matiasb 9y ago
  I updated the certificates using the tool they provide. Anyway I'm using the app most of the time.
- clon 9y ago
  Not sure when physical replacements start shipping, but the latest companion software (https://id.ee https://id.ee) offers a pretty smooth online key regeneration feature.
  - masswerk 9y ago
    Rolling out new physical cards in just a quarter of a year may be some feat. – Is there confidence in achieving this? Or is the key regeneration tool a complete replacement for the procedure?
    - clon 9y ago
      The key regeneration is touted as a proper solution and the cards do not need to be replaced after the procedure. It takes advantage of ECDSA to circumvent the borked RSA. https://github.com/open-eid/qesteidutil/commit/20ead85d31b0b37bea6639968596caee6ca56d6c https://github.com/open-eid/qesteidutil/commit/20ead85d31b0b... There is a huge campaign going on with service points open even in shopping malls for people that do not manage the process at home. Initially there were some scaling problems, though.. Edit: to tell the truth, the information available in Estonia regarding the exact nature of the fix is still scarce. There has been some offhand remarks from RIA that the updater basically patches the microcode on the card to generate an EC keypair, but not a lot of details.. The basic premise that the new key is still generated on the card, still holds, apparently.
joelrunyon 9y ago
I got estonian e-residence and wrote about it here (for those interested). https://impossiblehq.com/estonian-eresidency/ https://impossiblehq.com/estonian-eresidency/
- itake 9y ago
  > unless you count the Consulate, which technically is sovereign ground Actually, consulates are not considered sovereign ground [0] [0] - https://www.quora.com/Is-an-embassy-sovereign-territory https://www.quora.com/Is-an-embassy-sovereign-territory
mbrock 9y ago
https://president.ee/en/media/interviews/13471-our-citizens-are-going-digital-and-global-if-the-state-doesnt-keep-up-it-will-become-obsolete-the-telegraph/index.html https://president.ee/en/media/interviews/13471-our-citizens-... Article by Estonia's current president, Kersti Kaljulaid. "As the President of Estonia, I represent the only truly digital society which actually has a state. And this position has made me question whether the state as we know it today is fit for the 21st century."
amai 9y ago
Estonia also has a very interesting and unique scheme for taxation of corporations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Estonia#Corporations/legal_persons_income_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Estonia#Corporatio...
- lucaspiller 9y ago
  How do things like director expenses work? If I setup a company that rents me a house, a company car, and caters all my meals, I don’t need to pay any taxes?
  - bragh 9y ago
    The Tax and Customs Board does not look too kindly on that, because those would be considered costs not related to your business and you would have to pay all the ordinary employee taxes (fringe benefit taxes) on that. If your company's office is located in the same apartment you live in, then you could argue that at least partially your costs are entrepreneurial costs - it is how sole proprietors (FIE - füüsilisest isikust ettevõtja) operate. Do not know of a way to get around food costs though, it is not as if you could mark down every lunch as marketing/sales/client meeting with the limit to representation expenses - 32 EUR per month + 2% from gross salary per month. As an example, the latest hooplah around enterprise taxation is related to using company cars during private time. If an employer does not allow to use company cars for private purposes, then they will be marked as such in a public registry. If you have a feeling that your neighbor is using his company car outside of work, you can check it and report it to the TCB: http://www.err.ee/643218/erasoiduks-tooauto-kasutaja-saab-naabrivalve-korras-maksuametile-ules-anda http://www.err.ee/643218/erasoiduks-tooauto-kasutaja-saab-na... But if the company car is not registered as such, then you will have to pay fringe benefits tax 1,96 EUR per engine kW per month for newer cars and 1,47 EUR per engine kW per month for cars older than 5 years. As an exercise to the reader, think about how flat taxation per kW affects companies with electric cars.
  - Strom 9y ago
    There's a principle concept that every expense has to be for the purpose of doing business. If it's not, then it will get hit with income tax, and sometimes even payroll taxes. In practice nobody really monitors these things and many do abuse the system to cater for themselves etc. However if you find yourself an enemy who will report you (even just on suspicion), then you better have a convincing case for the tax authority and/or judge as your accounting gets audited. There are a bunch of special benefit rules that can be used for lawful cost savings though. There are lawful ways to split car costs with company money, there are lawful ways to get a tax-free daily allowance if you're traveling for business, limited to some X days per month. In general I think the company tax rates are low enough to do everything lawfully. Taking out profits as an owner incurs a 20% income tax to the company and zero taxes to the individual. In addition, if you've taken out profits before, then the company income tax is 14%, up to the amount that equals the average of the last 3 years. So if you take out similar profits on a regular basis, the tax rate is only 14% on everything.
markvdb 9y ago
E-government in Estonia, all fine and dandy[0]. But there is so incredibly much low hanging fruit to fix on an administrative level, all over the EU... I recently completed an advanced level of "Kafka quest": a 40-day fight with the city administration of Leuven, Belgium. The goal? Change the marital status of my Latvian(EU!) girlfriend in the Belgian(EU!) civil registry. From "undetermined" to "single". -"No, we can't accept printouts from an electronic service. It doesn't look like our examples, nothing at all like what we have." -"But it's the only marital status the Latvian civil registry gives out since a few years. Have a look at this explanation on the relevant Latvian government website. In English. With a Dutch translation I made to help you." -"I'll have to ask my boss." -(two weeks, several emails and phone calls later) "OK, we can accept this document. You don't even have to get a court stamp to legalise it. But it needs to be translated. To Dutch. All eleven pages, even if we need only that single word "single". No, google translate for the relevant bits won't do. No, you can't translate it yourself. It has to be done by a certified translator. Here's a list." - Leuven official sends me a list of certified translators. No certified translator for Latvian on it. I find one online, in a city 100km away. - Certified translator translates the 11 page document for us. Gives us a discount because it doesn't need a certified translation. - Make an appointment a week in advance (the fastest possible) with the city government, then back to the Leuven city hall. -"Ah, when we said it the civil registry excerpt was free of legalisation, we meant the original only. The certified translated copy needs to legalised. By the court of the city the translator is attached to." - Back to the translator in the city 100km away, to request legalisation by the local court of her translation of a source document that is free of legalisation. - Wait another two weeks for the stamped document to arrive by snail mail. - Make another appointment with the city services. But fear not, for there is hope! In a few years, so I learned, standardised paper forms will be developed to exchange this kind of information within the EU, hopefully eliminating the need for certified, legalised translations.[1] [0] ...except for the fundamental conceptual insecurity of voting from home of course. [1] http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32016R1191 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELE... for a bit more context.
- zaarn 9y ago
  In germany I'd call this tuesday and everyday that isn't tuesday. The amount of paperwar that I had to deal with at times was insane.
zerowellies 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_cyberattacks_on_Estonia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_cyberattacks_on_Estonia
unitboolean 9y ago
Meanwhile in Germany: - you can't even send an email to tax authorities and have to print/send paper letters - mobile internet is very slow and super expensive. - until recently it was not even possible to share your wlan
- camillomiller 9y ago
  This! I finished my 4GB with Blau and they don’t have any option to top them up. Just be ok with a limited connection at 64kbps, was their support reply. Insane.
  - s_trumpet 9y ago
    This sounds so backwards to me. Usually us third worlders have markedly worse infrastructure than abroad, but I use a prepaid plan for ~$9 (not adjusted for PPP) which gives me 2.5 GiB 4G per day for 30 days. Limited monthly plans seem like a thing from the past. Is there a lack of competition in the mobile service provider market? Bad regulation?
    - karussell 9y ago
      Wow, really 2.5GiB per day? May I ask which country? > Is there a lack of competition in the mobile service provider market? Bad regulation? Probably too few competition. I live in Germany and have not yet looked into this much, but I think Deutsche Telekom could be still a problem creating the majority of the infrastructure and offering usage for others probably only via higher fees. Similarly why there is no real competitor to Deutsche Bahn in the train sector.
      - camillomiller 9y ago
        I don't really know, but check this out. You don't need to understand German to see the crazy prices Telekom is asking for capped data plans: https://www.telekom.de/unterwegs/tarife-und-optionen/smartphone-tarife https://www.telekom.de/unterwegs/tarife-und-optionen/smartph... In Thailand last january I paid 9€ for a 4G Sim that lasted me 1 month with something like 21GB allowance. Plus LTE's speed is limited here. Thanks to the EU rules on roaming I'm now using my Italian Vodafone seem for data :(
jpelecanos 9y ago
How closely does the KAPO (Estonian Internal Security Service) monitor e-Estonia?
- boomboomsubban 9y ago
  Unauthorized collection of data is a crime, and there hasn't been much scandal. Fairly impossible to be certain, but there's no reason to suspect it is occurring.
- Avamander 9y ago
  https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2017/estonia https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2017/estonia It's either done really secretly or not at all.
freedomben 9y ago
I think it's time we expected more from our government.
patkai 9y ago
I'm a big fan of Estonia, Estonians and during my many visits I admired how quickly they transformed their small but not insignificant country to an innovative model nation. I hope they can stop brain drain and our Estonian colleagues realise that they have a 10 times bigger impact on the world if they stay there than if they move to Silicon Valley or other bigger hubs.
sexydefinesher 9y ago
Imagine if they one day actually got invaded and we would see the start of the distributed republics of Neal Stephenson.
throwawaymanbot 9y ago
Secure??? wern't their "Secure" IDs a joke?
blahedo 9y ago
The most interesting part of an interesting article was the bit near the bottom about "kratt law"—conceptualising the idea of wanting to "make it possible to hold accountable whoever gave a drop of blood." It's a beautiful and highly comprehensible metaphor.

351 points by jkaljundi 9y ago

jou jüri

Just opened a company in Estonia. The experience so far has been incredible. It's not quite the future - all the technologies should exist everywhere etc. It's the present that should have been, but somehow it's not.

lukasm 9y ago
Why did you do it in Estonia?
- fijal 9y ago
  English, stable currency, ability to do stuff online, mature and working banking system. Does not leave many interesting candidates.
  - dejv 9y ago
    What are you using (if you are using anything) for taking credit card payments? Stripe is not available there, right?
    - fijal 9y ago
      Investigating that topic, but taking card payments is not a part of my primary business.
    - logronoide 9y ago
      Stripe is not in Estonia, so we applied to Braintree. It took us a couple of weeks and we were rejected at the beginning, but finally they accepted us. Also 2checkout can be an option too.
      - kreetx 9y ago
        It's so unfortunate that Stripe isn't supported in Estonia yet! It would be a major boon given the good reputation Stripe has among developers.
        vilmosi 9y ago
        Maybe it's a regional thing but I never encountered Stripe in the UK/EU. I don't think people know of it.
        ateesdalejr 9y ago
        Stripe is used by https://pythonanywhere.com https://pythonanywhere.com I believe they are based in the UK according to their payment statements.
        wastedhours 9y ago
        On the other hand of anecdata, I'm in the UK, and plenty of people I know have heard of and use it. It's the developer go-to for most projects I've seen, but BT does appeal with Paypal integration.
        toomanybeersies 9y ago
        I've worked with both Braintree and Stripe, and I'm honestly not sure why people harp on about Stripe so much compared to BT. In my experience, they're both super easy to work with.
        randsp 9y ago
        What about Paymill?
      - MadQA 9y ago
        Dang, I should go try and reapply, also e-resident, also got rejected pretty quickly. Good to know the guys are open to re-evaluation.
        logronoide 9y ago
  - superplussed 9y ago
    What are the advantages over using Stripe Atlas and having a US Delaware C Corp for $500?
    - dullgiulio 9y ago
      Maybe it needs to be in the EU.
    - fijal 9y ago
      I tried to sign up for stripe atlas in beta and they didn't want me :) More seriously - owning shares in us companies create scary tax implications that require some advice when having us clients. US banking system is stuck is in the 1800s and dealing with it is a very serious pain. US legal system, unlike European is very unfriendly for individuals - its just infeasible to do stuff yourself on a shoestring budget, without hiring professionals.
      - adventured 9y ago
        > its just infeasible to do stuff yourself on a shoestring budget, without hiring professionals. Millions of new businesses are started every year in the US on a shoestring and without hiring professionals.
        slededit 9y ago
        For foreign owned companies there are a myriad of complex reporting requirements a US person would never see. Despite not even being a tax form some of these (e.g. FBAR) have penalties of 50% of the unreported amount. It's not something you want to leave to chance.
        forapurpose 9y ago
        > Millions of new businesses are started every year in the US on a shoestring and without hiring professionals. I don't think that's meaningful. There are 320 million people in the U.S., and only a tiny proportion of people anywhere would consider opening their business in another country. That doesn't mean there isn't a high barrier to accessing the U.S. legal system. For example, as we know, well-funded parties often defeat poorer parties by simply threatening legal action, because the poorer party cannot afford to use the legal system.
puranjay 9y ago
Curious to know: what's your home country? What are the tax implications for you locally?
- fijal 9y ago
  Personally none - I pay taxes in my home country and everyone is happy. The company rules (delayed income tax, income tax rate) might be subject to treaty that defines "command and control" - that is if the company is really located in Estonia or is it effectively in your home country? If you have an actual office or co founders from other countries or some other vague "company is actually located in estonia", then there are no tax implications of that, other than your personal income.
elorant 9y ago
Can you open a company without visiting the country?
- fijal 9y ago
  yes, but you cannot open a bank account. You can use holvi (https://about.holvi.com/e-residents/ https://about.holvi.com/e-residents/) but I haven't used it and don't know details on how it differs from a regular bank.
crypt1d 9y ago
Me too! I used leapin for the whole process. Never had a more pleasant experience with bureaucratic procedures.
icey 9y ago
I'm getting ready to do this but haven't figured out a way to open a bank account there without visiting the country. How did you do that? I saw there's a service that will do it for you but it seems like an expensive monthly fee.
- logronoide 9y ago
  I opened my company with Leapin. Easy and fast. If you don’t need a bank account and you can live with PayPal you don’t need to go there. I needed a bank account and credit card so I traveled to Tallinn and opened a bank account at LHV. You have to sign the documents at the bank office. I think LHV Bank is working on a remote process with an interview using Skype, but it was not available several months ago. Still, I have faced several issues setting up my small SaaS service: Stripe is not available and my Braintree application was rejected because they did not understand why I wanted to create a company in Estonia! It took me two weeks to explain that I was a nice guy and then everything went fine. I also had issues creating a merchant account in Coinbase, so I had to use Bitpay.
- jaggederest 9y ago
  To be honest, you should visit the country either way. Estonia is a pretty wonderful place, at least it was when I visited.
- randsp 9y ago
  I'm in the process of opening remotely a company with Leapin. My first intention was to use Holvi for banking but I realized you need to pay 30€/month if you are a e-resident so I probably will switch to Transferwise Borderless.
matiasb 9y ago
I opened a company last year. In my country we can't access Paypal or Stripe and international bank transfers are painful. I had to travel to Estonia because of the KYC stuff from the bank, the rest of the process was completed remotely. Also the deposit insurance in my country is quite low, so saving money in Estonia is a good option for me. I'm using the LHV Bank, they give you a multi-currency account, a great mobile application and also access to different worldwide markets (for investments, etc.).

phil248 9y ago

Just a fun geography tip, you can easily remember the locations of the 3 Baltic states because they go in alphabetical order from North to South. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania.

asdjasldkjkljd 9y ago
Really useful when the relative locations of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania come up in conversation which is literally never a single time in my life.
_acme 9y ago
Estonia, however, is more Nordic than it is Baltic, other than in geography: its people and language are Finnic (neither Indo-European nor related to Latvian/Lithuanian) and it's been part of Denmark or Sweden for most of its history; there were even Estonian vikings.
- tikums 9y ago
  That's not quite correct. There were also 'Latvian vikings', the Curonians. Latvia was also ruled by Sweden for centuries. There's not much difference there, apart from language. They were a mix of Baltic tribes, some combination of which formed the modern nation states.

puranjay 9y ago

I keep seeing a ton of ads for starting a company in Estonia. To those who've done it, what are the pros/cons? For the record, I'm based out of India and have been advised to setup in Singapore

dijit 9y ago
Well, if you're trading in Europe that's a huge benefit. But also the big selling factor is how much of their governmental services are digitised and unified. It makes dealing with anything like taxes quite convenient. It's quite smart for Estonia to do this because they have quite a lot of brain-drain. Lots of up-and-coming educated Estonians end up leaving the country to persue jobs in Europe due to the lack of companies operating locally. Trasferwise is capitalising on this, but the government sees it as a reason to heavily invest in making companies want to be in Estonia.
- twfarland 9y ago
  There seems to be a fair bit of tech work here, at least, but the average salary is low, and the personal tax burden (with social tax) is high.
logronoide 9y ago
For me, it’s cheaper to run a company in Estonia than my country (an EU country). You don’t pay taxes if you company has benefits. You pay taxes for the dividends only, which makes the company perfect for very early stages. Also, for an international business a company based in Estonia looks more reliable and “techie” than other countries. And this is important if You sell digital goods or services. I think Singapore can be a good place too, but it’s much more complicated for me.
- vram22 9y ago
  >if you company has benefits. By "benefits" do you mean profits?
  - 9y ago

superdug 9y ago

I might actually have an idea of what the article was talking about, but after reading 5 paragraphs about the road and lawn I just kind of gave up.

elorant 9y ago
Well that's New Yorker, they're the kings of long reads.
- jeron 9y ago
  always good reads though
twelvechairs 9y ago
I agree - I prefer dry facts and really dislike the trend of news written like narrative. I usually turn off after the first sentence (invariably an attempt to write like a 19th century novelist) because I know its going to be 10 minutes before i figure out if there's anything of value to me in its content (I acknowledge that sometimes there is and I'll miss out).
- jfoutz 9y ago
  It is disconcerting for an upstart like the New Yorker of co opt a dickens style. You’d think after 90 years they would realize it is just a fad.

masswerk 9y ago

I know, this may be unpopular in context, but are there any updates on the Estonian ID-cards? News as of November were that they were (temporarily) locked-down [1] and are to be reissued until next March [2] in reaction to the RSA related security flaws [3] in the libraries bundled with the Infineon chip. Is this even an issue, or is everyone using a phone app, instead of the cards, anyway? [1] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/11/03/estonian_e_id_lockdown/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/11/03/estonian_e_id_lockd... [2] http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41858583 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41858583 [3] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/09/security_flaw_i.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/09/security_flaw...

matiasb 9y ago
I updated the certificates using the tool they provide. Anyway I'm using the app most of the time.
clon 9y ago
Not sure when physical replacements start shipping, but the latest companion software (https://id.ee https://id.ee) offers a pretty smooth online key regeneration feature.
- masswerk 9y ago
  Rolling out new physical cards in just a quarter of a year may be some feat. – Is there confidence in achieving this? Or is the key regeneration tool a complete replacement for the procedure?
  - clon 9y ago
    The key regeneration is touted as a proper solution and the cards do not need to be replaced after the procedure. It takes advantage of ECDSA to circumvent the borked RSA. https://github.com/open-eid/qesteidutil/commit/20ead85d31b0b37bea6639968596caee6ca56d6c https://github.com/open-eid/qesteidutil/commit/20ead85d31b0b... There is a huge campaign going on with service points open even in shopping malls for people that do not manage the process at home. Initially there were some scaling problems, though.. Edit: to tell the truth, the information available in Estonia regarding the exact nature of the fix is still scarce. There has been some offhand remarks from RIA that the updater basically patches the microcode on the card to generate an EC keypair, but not a lot of details.. The basic premise that the new key is still generated on the card, still holds, apparently.

joelrunyon 9y ago

I got estonian e-residence and wrote about it here (for those interested). https://impossiblehq.com/estonian-eresidency/ https://impossiblehq.com/estonian-eresidency/

itake 9y ago
> unless you count the Consulate, which technically is sovereign ground Actually, consulates are not considered sovereign ground [0] [0] - https://www.quora.com/Is-an-embassy-sovereign-territory https://www.quora.com/Is-an-embassy-sovereign-territory

mbrock 9y ago

https://president.ee/en/media/interviews/13471-our-citizens-are-going-digital-and-global-if-the-state-doesnt-keep-up-it-will-become-obsolete-the-telegraph/index.html https://president.ee/en/media/interviews/13471-our-citizens-... Article by Estonia's current president, Kersti Kaljulaid. "As the President of Estonia, I represent the only truly digital society which actually has a state. And this position has made me question whether the state as we know it today is fit for the 21st century."

amai 9y ago

Estonia also has a very interesting and unique scheme for taxation of corporations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Estonia#Corporations/legal_persons_income_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Estonia#Corporatio...

lucaspiller 9y ago
How do things like director expenses work? If I setup a company that rents me a house, a company car, and caters all my meals, I don’t need to pay any taxes?
- bragh 9y ago
  The Tax and Customs Board does not look too kindly on that, because those would be considered costs not related to your business and you would have to pay all the ordinary employee taxes (fringe benefit taxes) on that. If your company's office is located in the same apartment you live in, then you could argue that at least partially your costs are entrepreneurial costs - it is how sole proprietors (FIE - füüsilisest isikust ettevõtja) operate. Do not know of a way to get around food costs though, it is not as if you could mark down every lunch as marketing/sales/client meeting with the limit to representation expenses - 32 EUR per month + 2% from gross salary per month. As an example, the latest hooplah around enterprise taxation is related to using company cars during private time. If an employer does not allow to use company cars for private purposes, then they will be marked as such in a public registry. If you have a feeling that your neighbor is using his company car outside of work, you can check it and report it to the TCB: http://www.err.ee/643218/erasoiduks-tooauto-kasutaja-saab-naabrivalve-korras-maksuametile-ules-anda http://www.err.ee/643218/erasoiduks-tooauto-kasutaja-saab-na... But if the company car is not registered as such, then you will have to pay fringe benefits tax 1,96 EUR per engine kW per month for newer cars and 1,47 EUR per engine kW per month for cars older than 5 years. As an exercise to the reader, think about how flat taxation per kW affects companies with electric cars.
- Strom 9y ago
  There's a principle concept that every expense has to be for the purpose of doing business. If it's not, then it will get hit with income tax, and sometimes even payroll taxes. In practice nobody really monitors these things and many do abuse the system to cater for themselves etc. However if you find yourself an enemy who will report you (even just on suspicion), then you better have a convincing case for the tax authority and/or judge as your accounting gets audited. There are a bunch of special benefit rules that can be used for lawful cost savings though. There are lawful ways to split car costs with company money, there are lawful ways to get a tax-free daily allowance if you're traveling for business, limited to some X days per month. In general I think the company tax rates are low enough to do everything lawfully. Taking out profits as an owner incurs a 20% income tax to the company and zero taxes to the individual. In addition, if you've taken out profits before, then the company income tax is 14%, up to the amount that equals the average of the last 3 years. So if you take out similar profits on a regular basis, the tax rate is only 14% on everything.

markvdb 9y ago

E-government in Estonia, all fine and dandy[0]. But there is so incredibly much low hanging fruit to fix on an administrative level, all over the EU... I recently completed an advanced level of "Kafka quest": a 40-day fight with the city administration of Leuven, Belgium. The goal? Change the marital status of my Latvian(EU!) girlfriend in the Belgian(EU!) civil registry. From "undetermined" to "single". -"No, we can't accept printouts from an electronic service. It doesn't look like our examples, nothing at all like what we have." -"But it's the only marital status the Latvian civil registry gives out since a few years. Have a look at this explanation on the relevant Latvian government website. In English. With a Dutch translation I made to help you." -"I'll have to ask my boss." -(two weeks, several emails and phone calls later) "OK, we can accept this document. You don't even have to get a court stamp to legalise it. But it needs to be translated. To Dutch. All eleven pages, even if we need only that single word "single". No, google translate for the relevant bits won't do. No, you can't translate it yourself. It has to be done by a certified translator. Here's a list." - Leuven official sends me a list of certified translators. No certified translator for Latvian on it. I find one online, in a city 100km away. - Certified translator translates the 11 page document for us. Gives us a discount because it doesn't need a certified translation. - Make an appointment a week in advance (the fastest possible) with the city government, then back to the Leuven city hall. -"Ah, when we said it the civil registry excerpt was free of legalisation, we meant the original only. The certified translated copy needs to legalised. By the court of the city the translator is attached to." - Back to the translator in the city 100km away, to request legalisation by the local court of her translation of a source document that is free of legalisation. - Wait another two weeks for the stamped document to arrive by snail mail. - Make another appointment with the city services. But fear not, for there is hope! In a few years, so I learned, standardised paper forms will be developed to exchange this kind of information within the EU, hopefully eliminating the need for certified, legalised translations.[1] [0] ...except for the fundamental conceptual insecurity of voting from home of course. [1] http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32016R1191 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELE... for a bit more context.

zaarn 9y ago
In germany I'd call this tuesday and everyday that isn't tuesday. The amount of paperwar that I had to deal with at times was insane.

zerowellies 9y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_cyberattacks_on_Estonia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_cyberattacks_on_Estonia

unitboolean 9y ago

Meanwhile in Germany: - you can't even send an email to tax authorities and have to print/send paper letters - mobile internet is very slow and super expensive. - until recently it was not even possible to share your wlan

camillomiller 9y ago
This! I finished my 4GB with Blau and they don’t have any option to top them up. Just be ok with a limited connection at 64kbps, was their support reply. Insane.
- s_trumpet 9y ago
  This sounds so backwards to me. Usually us third worlders have markedly worse infrastructure than abroad, but I use a prepaid plan for ~$9 (not adjusted for PPP) which gives me 2.5 GiB 4G per day for 30 days. Limited monthly plans seem like a thing from the past. Is there a lack of competition in the mobile service provider market? Bad regulation?
  - karussell 9y ago
    Wow, really 2.5GiB per day? May I ask which country? > Is there a lack of competition in the mobile service provider market? Bad regulation? Probably too few competition. I live in Germany and have not yet looked into this much, but I think Deutsche Telekom could be still a problem creating the majority of the infrastructure and offering usage for others probably only via higher fees. Similarly why there is no real competitor to Deutsche Bahn in the train sector.
    - camillomiller 9y ago
      I don't really know, but check this out. You don't need to understand German to see the crazy prices Telekom is asking for capped data plans: https://www.telekom.de/unterwegs/tarife-und-optionen/smartphone-tarife https://www.telekom.de/unterwegs/tarife-und-optionen/smartph... In Thailand last january I paid 9€ for a 4G Sim that lasted me 1 month with something like 21GB allowance. Plus LTE's speed is limited here. Thanks to the EU rules on roaming I'm now using my Italian Vodafone seem for data :(

jpelecanos 9y ago

How closely does the KAPO (Estonian Internal Security Service) monitor e-Estonia?

boomboomsubban 9y ago
Unauthorized collection of data is a crime, and there hasn't been much scandal. Fairly impossible to be certain, but there's no reason to suspect it is occurring.
Avamander 9y ago
https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2017/estonia https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2017/estonia It's either done really secretly or not at all.

freedomben 9y ago

I think it's time we expected more from our government.

patkai 9y ago

I'm a big fan of Estonia, Estonians and during my many visits I admired how quickly they transformed their small but not insignificant country to an innovative model nation. I hope they can stop brain drain and our Estonian colleagues realise that they have a 10 times bigger impact on the world if they stay there than if they move to Silicon Valley or other bigger hubs.

sexydefinesher 9y ago

Imagine if they one day actually got invaded and we would see the start of the distributed republics of Neal Stephenson.

throwawaymanbot 9y ago

Secure??? wern't their "Secure" IDs a joke?

blahedo 9y ago

The most interesting part of an interesting article was the bit near the bottom about "kratt law"—conceptualising the idea of wanting to "make it possible to hold accountable whoever gave a drop of blood." It's a beautiful and highly comprehensible metaphor.