6 ms·

Governments should be competing for wealthy taxpayers. And as income sources become divorced from physical locations, they will be forced to do so more and more

Governments should be competing for wealthy taxpayers. And as income sources become divorced from physical locations, they will be forced to do so more and more every year. I run venture backed businesses. Teams are distributed. So I count days across the world and do not pay taxes anywhere (i am not a US citizen so it is much easier). In the process my company and I benefit from low cost of capital raised in silicon valley, low cost of excellent talent hired in russia, my personal expanded social network in markets in Asia. And it easily pays for itself just in terms of not needing to pay any taxes anywhere. It just makes sense to live this way once you have high income, are building something that is not physically in one location, understand how to be healthy/social/etc while living in many places. the current tax system has no future. the fundamental reason is that there is simply no point for anyone to pay crazy taxes. the United States (or any other country) just do not deliver enough marginal value from being there for more than X days per year to pay an extra 20-40% in taxes. to help your community – donate to things you care about and add value for other people that way. i want health research to benefit. it makes much more sense to donate/invest there, than to send the fruits of my work to the NSA to fund them to spy on me. i hope more and more people do this.

Luc 8y ago
Excellent trolling, well done.
- sergefaguet 8y ago
  hah. i do believe every word of it.
  - rawTruthHurts 8y ago
    Rather off-topic, but I'm curious abut your view of Bezos charitably funding schools instead of improving his worker's conditions.
    - sergefaguet 8y ago
      very positive. he is building value for society by: - bringing cheaper great products to vast numbers of people - building AWS infrastructure that enables other people to build products cheaper and faster - creating huge number of jobs (that you might not like but lots of people in the world would like to have) - funding things he cares about one of the most useful and beneficial people in the world.
      - ryandrake 8y ago
        When philanthropy funds the public good, society abdicates responsibility of defining “public good”, and leaves that to a handful of philanthropists. Hundreds of thousands of Amazon employees generated this wealth and billions of customers enabled it, yet one person gets to decide which services or causes are worthy of funding. This is called plutarchy.
        sergefaguet 8y ago
        thankfully the world does not support your view that it is the warehouse workers and customers, and not the entrepreneurs, who create wealth. kind of surprised you are on YC/HN if that is what you believe...
      - rawTruthHurts 8y ago
        While there is no denial for that, I fail to see how that is an insight into the the charity vs workers' conditions issue
  - InitialLastName 8y ago
    It must suck to be homeless like that.
    - sergefaguet 8y ago
      it has its challenges, but also lots of upsides. have to train self to be very good with habits, investing in relationships and the like. i've been doing it for the last 2 years and at first it was kind of depressing but now have never been happier. e.g. last 2 weeks spent in silicon valley having 40+ meetings a week w really smart people i learned a lot from. got fed up w meetings, so now working from beach in tulum for a week by myself. next week working fdrom rome/florence with a really cool girl. then doing a certain plant ceremony in a certain undisclosed country. etc.
- ryandrake 8y ago
  The best trolls are the ones where you legitimately can’t tell if they truly believe the shit they say. This one is more “cartoon villain”. It’s a characature—what many people believe an evil, mustache-twirling rich person might say. Pretty transparent, but good effort.
  - sergefaguet 8y ago
    this is me: http://medium.com/@sergefaguet/ http://medium.com/@sergefaguet/ YC alum so pretty sure this is not a fake HN ID :) i wish people didn't see this stuff as Bond villainy though. this is clearly a failure on my part in terms of communication... thinking on how to remain authentic but reduce that effect.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - ficklepickle 8y ago
      I'm pretty sure it's you that doesn't fully appreciate the implications of your statement.
    - ryandrake 8y ago
      Totally encourage working on your message. You are likely not going to see much support or agreement by boasting about enjoying the benefits provided by society while dodging paying for it through taxes.
      - sergefaguet 8y ago
        well i don't agree that i am "enjoying the benefits provided by society while dodging paying for it through taxes." i think people who create wealth pay for society already. i am thinking of working on my message, but i'm not going to change my convictions just because people don't like it.
        fzeroracer 8y ago
jamiek88 8y ago
So you’re glorifying being a parasite?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- st1ck 8y ago
  What is parasitical about GP? I presume they pay for everything: labor, food, accommodation, travel costs. Are tourists parasites? Why do you think they must pay taxes, and to what country, and in exchange for what? Would you pay taxes to the government voluntarily if you legally didn't have to do it?
- sergefaguet 8y ago
  i pay my way, create jobs for people, fund/promote things i consider valuable for humanity (e.g. medical tech). i have never claimed a medical, educational, unemployment etc. benefit in my life. and i am a citizen of a country that will never give me any such benefits anyway. my approach adds more value to society than funding inefficient social programs, armies of bureaucrats and bloated spy agencies. yeah, i glorify this.
  - sunstone 8y ago
    I wonder why Warren Buffet doesn't do this? Maybe his income is too low?
  - ace_of_spades 8y ago
    I guess what is missing from your equation is that the model you are advocating for is not sustainable for large parts of the population. Just imagine everyone doing this, do you think the countries could still exist the way they do? It‘s all and well that you decide to fund some medical tech but what about all the other areas that need attention? Your giving portfolio doesn‘t really strike me as well-balanced in that regard. Additionally, I would question that you are actually giving an amount similar to what you would be paying in taxes. So your argument that you provide more value to society doesn‘t strike me as obviously credible. I would urge you to really do some more comprehensive estimations and analysis before making such a claim – at least if you are interested in the „truth“ and not just making yourself feel good about yourself. On the other hand, I see the possibility for what you are doing to have a positive impact depending on what you do and what you use your money for (maybe have a look at 80000hours.org to get some inspiration). But you have to keep in mind that this is just a marginal possibility for rather small parts of the population and that this model probabaly wouldn‘t scale at all. So, it might make sense to keep this in mind when you discuss and think about this topic.
jsoc815 8y ago
If you're actually serious, I tip my hat to you. Usually when I've talked to people what you've outlined, their eyes glaze over. So, if you are actually being truthful here, would you mind sharing when you first started out w/this? I mean did you always plan to do this and structure your business dealings accordingly or did you get your money and figure out what do after the fact-- which has never really made any sense to me, but is what I've always been told by the lawyers & accountants w/whom I spoke (I suspect because they make more money that way)? Thanks...
- sergefaguet 8y ago
  oh very serious :) i blog about a lot of stuff around how i organize my life here: https://hackernoon.com/biohack-your-intelligence-now-or-become-obsolete-97cdd15e395f https://hackernoon.com/biohack-your-intelligence-now-or-beco... haven't yet written about location changing specifically but will at some point... but you can read about my general approaches on that blog on hackernoon. it is mostly about health, optimizing efficiency, long term planning etc.
  - jsoc815 8y ago
    Cool, and good for you. Peeked @ your blog... As someone who leans toward medical non-interventionism, I'm looking forward to reading up on your health regime. And of course, I do hope that you'll consider saying/writing more about how and why you came to develop/adopt your wealth maintenance strategy. For example, when I saw GSB, I thought, "Oh, yeah, that makes sense." But maybe being an alum has nothing to do w/ your approach. Cheers!
beagle3 8y ago
I know a few people who practice this -- and as it becomes more common, tax regimes in the world will figure out a way to make it harder. Israel has apparently already addressed this: If you are an Israeli citizen, and spend more than half the year outside Israel, you don't generally owe any taxes on income generated outside of Israel ... provided that you can prove you are a tax resident somewhere . If you can't, then you are assumed to be an Israeli tax resident. If most countries had such a law, you could still shop around for low rates, but it would make it harder to avoid taxes altogether.
- sergefaguet 8y ago
  one can be a tax resident of monaco for 0% tax. or give up the israeli passport for something else. it is easy to acquire new passports. plus at some point it becomes taxation-without-representation and has to be fought more overtly by bringing to power governments that don't do this kind of shit. people don't realize that a century ago governments provided security and courts for a blended tax burden of under 10%. all the increase since then was to pay for medical services (mostly really dumb end of life care rather than educating people how to live healthy lives) and social safety net (which i would argue adds much less value to the well-being of the average person than technological progress does).
asenna 8y ago
I'm not sure why some think the parent is trolling. I read this and I was smiling because I almost literally do the same thing and call myself a "Digital Nomad". The difference is probably that I'm not as rich or as successful yet. But my business is growing steady and I can manage a remote team on different timezones pretty well. The clients in the US don't even realize I'm not in the states a lot of times and they're happy as long as the work is being delivered. This life is not for everyone but there are a lot of people who love traveling and for whom settling in one place gets boring (for me at least). Saving bay area rent and spending that on stays in interesting places helps a lot! Also, shout out to some awesome Virtual Office services offering mail scans / check deposits, etc :)
- wtfstatists 8y ago
  Absolutely. Though nomad lifestyle isnt really for me. Malta has a cool residency program [1]: pay only $15k/yr + territorial tax and live and work from there. Georgia is a good and cheaper option, a more natural and open country but not as developed (developing very fast though). Best thing is ease of getting residency, if you can afford it you will get it. No artificial barrier. So can bring your employees from all over the world and open an office. So yeah not paying $20+k/yr to any goverment either. The moment I hit that I am out. [1] https://www.ccmalta.com/publications/malta-global-residence-programme https://www.ccmalta.com/publications/malta-global-residence-...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

Luc 8y ago

Excellent trolling, well done.

sergefaguet 8y ago
hah. i do believe every word of it.
- rawTruthHurts 8y ago
  Rather off-topic, but I'm curious abut your view of Bezos charitably funding schools instead of improving his worker's conditions.
  - sergefaguet 8y ago
    very positive. he is building value for society by: - bringing cheaper great products to vast numbers of people - building AWS infrastructure that enables other people to build products cheaper and faster - creating huge number of jobs (that you might not like but lots of people in the world would like to have) - funding things he cares about one of the most useful and beneficial people in the world.
    - ryandrake 8y ago
      When philanthropy funds the public good, society abdicates responsibility of defining “public good”, and leaves that to a handful of philanthropists. Hundreds of thousands of Amazon employees generated this wealth and billions of customers enabled it, yet one person gets to decide which services or causes are worthy of funding. This is called plutarchy.
      - sergefaguet 8y ago
        thankfully the world does not support your view that it is the warehouse workers and customers, and not the entrepreneurs, who create wealth. kind of surprised you are on YC/HN if that is what you believe...
    - rawTruthHurts 8y ago
      While there is no denial for that, I fail to see how that is an insight into the the charity vs workers' conditions issue
- InitialLastName 8y ago
  It must suck to be homeless like that.
  - sergefaguet 8y ago
    it has its challenges, but also lots of upsides. have to train self to be very good with habits, investing in relationships and the like. i've been doing it for the last 2 years and at first it was kind of depressing but now have never been happier. e.g. last 2 weeks spent in silicon valley having 40+ meetings a week w really smart people i learned a lot from. got fed up w meetings, so now working from beach in tulum for a week by myself. next week working fdrom rome/florence with a really cool girl. then doing a certain plant ceremony in a certain undisclosed country. etc.
ryandrake 8y ago
The best trolls are the ones where you legitimately can’t tell if they truly believe the shit they say. This one is more “cartoon villain”. It’s a characature—what many people believe an evil, mustache-twirling rich person might say. Pretty transparent, but good effort.
- sergefaguet 8y ago
  this is me: http://medium.com/@sergefaguet/ http://medium.com/@sergefaguet/ YC alum so pretty sure this is not a fake HN ID :) i wish people didn't see this stuff as Bond villainy though. this is clearly a failure on my part in terms of communication... thinking on how to remain authentic but reduce that effect.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - ficklepickle 8y ago
    I'm pretty sure it's you that doesn't fully appreciate the implications of your statement.
  - ryandrake 8y ago
    Totally encourage working on your message. You are likely not going to see much support or agreement by boasting about enjoying the benefits provided by society while dodging paying for it through taxes.
    - sergefaguet 8y ago
      well i don't agree that i am "enjoying the benefits provided by society while dodging paying for it through taxes." i think people who create wealth pay for society already. i am thinking of working on my message, but i'm not going to change my convictions just because people don't like it.
      - fzeroracer 8y ago

jamiek88 8y ago

So you’re glorifying being a parasite?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
st1ck 8y ago
What is parasitical about GP? I presume they pay for everything: labor, food, accommodation, travel costs. Are tourists parasites? Why do you think they must pay taxes, and to what country, and in exchange for what? Would you pay taxes to the government voluntarily if you legally didn't have to do it?
sergefaguet 8y ago
i pay my way, create jobs for people, fund/promote things i consider valuable for humanity (e.g. medical tech). i have never claimed a medical, educational, unemployment etc. benefit in my life. and i am a citizen of a country that will never give me any such benefits anyway. my approach adds more value to society than funding inefficient social programs, armies of bureaucrats and bloated spy agencies. yeah, i glorify this.
- sunstone 8y ago
  I wonder why Warren Buffet doesn't do this? Maybe his income is too low?
- ace_of_spades 8y ago
  I guess what is missing from your equation is that the model you are advocating for is not sustainable for large parts of the population. Just imagine everyone doing this, do you think the countries could still exist the way they do? It‘s all and well that you decide to fund some medical tech but what about all the other areas that need attention? Your giving portfolio doesn‘t really strike me as well-balanced in that regard. Additionally, I would question that you are actually giving an amount similar to what you would be paying in taxes. So your argument that you provide more value to society doesn‘t strike me as obviously credible. I would urge you to really do some more comprehensive estimations and analysis before making such a claim – at least if you are interested in the „truth“ and not just making yourself feel good about yourself. On the other hand, I see the possibility for what you are doing to have a positive impact depending on what you do and what you use your money for (maybe have a look at 80000hours.org to get some inspiration). But you have to keep in mind that this is just a marginal possibility for rather small parts of the population and that this model probabaly wouldn‘t scale at all. So, it might make sense to keep this in mind when you discuss and think about this topic.

jsoc815 8y ago

If you're actually serious, I tip my hat to you. Usually when I've talked to people what you've outlined, their eyes glaze over. So, if you are actually being truthful here, would you mind sharing when you first started out w/this? I mean did you always plan to do this and structure your business dealings accordingly or did you get your money and figure out what do after the fact-- which has never really made any sense to me, but is what I've always been told by the lawyers & accountants w/whom I spoke (I suspect because they make more money that way)? Thanks...

sergefaguet 8y ago
oh very serious :) i blog about a lot of stuff around how i organize my life here: https://hackernoon.com/biohack-your-intelligence-now-or-become-obsolete-97cdd15e395f https://hackernoon.com/biohack-your-intelligence-now-or-beco... haven't yet written about location changing specifically but will at some point... but you can read about my general approaches on that blog on hackernoon. it is mostly about health, optimizing efficiency, long term planning etc.
- jsoc815 8y ago
  Cool, and good for you. Peeked @ your blog... As someone who leans toward medical non-interventionism, I'm looking forward to reading up on your health regime. And of course, I do hope that you'll consider saying/writing more about how and why you came to develop/adopt your wealth maintenance strategy. For example, when I saw GSB, I thought, "Oh, yeah, that makes sense." But maybe being an alum has nothing to do w/ your approach. Cheers!

beagle3 8y ago

I know a few people who practice this -- and as it becomes more common, tax regimes in the world will figure out a way to make it harder. Israel has apparently already addressed this: If you are an Israeli citizen, and spend more than half the year outside Israel, you don't generally owe any taxes on income generated outside of Israel ... provided that you can prove you are a tax resident somewhere . If you can't, then you are assumed to be an Israeli tax resident. If most countries had such a law, you could still shop around for low rates, but it would make it harder to avoid taxes altogether.

sergefaguet 8y ago
one can be a tax resident of monaco for 0% tax. or give up the israeli passport for something else. it is easy to acquire new passports. plus at some point it becomes taxation-without-representation and has to be fought more overtly by bringing to power governments that don't do this kind of shit. people don't realize that a century ago governments provided security and courts for a blended tax burden of under 10%. all the increase since then was to pay for medical services (mostly really dumb end of life care rather than educating people how to live healthy lives) and social safety net (which i would argue adds much less value to the well-being of the average person than technological progress does).

asenna 8y ago

I'm not sure why some think the parent is trolling. I read this and I was smiling because I almost literally do the same thing and call myself a "Digital Nomad". The difference is probably that I'm not as rich or as successful yet. But my business is growing steady and I can manage a remote team on different timezones pretty well. The clients in the US don't even realize I'm not in the states a lot of times and they're happy as long as the work is being delivered. This life is not for everyone but there are a lot of people who love traveling and for whom settling in one place gets boring (for me at least). Saving bay area rent and spending that on stays in interesting places helps a lot! Also, shout out to some awesome Virtual Office services offering mail scans / check deposits, etc :)

wtfstatists 8y ago
Absolutely. Though nomad lifestyle isnt really for me. Malta has a cool residency program [1]: pay only $15k/yr + territorial tax and live and work from there. Georgia is a good and cheaper option, a more natural and open country but not as developed (developing very fast though). Best thing is ease of getting residency, if you can afford it you will get it. No artificial barrier. So can bring your employees from all over the world and open an office. So yeah not paying $20+k/yr to any goverment either. The moment I hit that I am out. [1] https://www.ccmalta.com/publications/malta-global-residence-programme https://www.ccmalta.com/publications/malta-global-residence-...

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]