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Finally! The situation is getting to ridiculous levels. Yes, influx of foreign talent and investment is good, but it's an extreme situation that is out of contr

Finally! The situation is getting to ridiculous levels. Yes, influx of foreign talent and investment is good, but it's an extreme situation that is out of control. Expats were able to evade all taxes due to crypto exemption, and rules for income from foreign country companies. Locals fund social infrastructure while expats use it, dry out the housing market, and raise prices through gentrification. Golden visas are a loophole for sanctions against Russia's aggression (at least one well known oligarch has a Portuguese golden visa), and it's ironic that you can buy a visa with 200k while refugees die in the Mediterranean trying to seek asylum and safety.

splix 4y ago
> golden visas are a loophole for sanctions against Russia's aggression No. Portugal doesn't accept Russian citizens for golden visa since the war started. And do not process applications started before. > one well known oligarch has a Portuguese golden visa No. He didn't do the golden visa. He got it in a different way. He have got it "under a law that offered naturalization to descendants of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Portugal about 500 years ago during the inquisition". And he received it about a year before the war and the sanctions.
cromka 4y ago
There's a reason why VAT is not enough and we also pay income tax to fund any country's budget and all the infrastructure. Being a digital nomad is basically a taking advantage of a bargain that is getting away with that VAT only.
- seper8 4y ago
  Digital nomads dont pay income tax?
  - jwestbury 4y ago
    In most countries, I believe they should, but if they're being paid from another country, it may be relatively easy to get away with not paying income taxes -- since the country of residence would have no record of the income in the first place.
    - LudwigNagasena 4y ago
      As far as I know usually you can’t get a nomad visa without proof of income.
      - mejutoco 4y ago
        I wonder if savings count. In that case it could work too.
    - refurb 4y ago
      This. I know a few people who work remote and just live on tourist visas in different countries. They get paid in the US and deposited in a US account. They have no bank account, ID number, nothing in the country. It's hard to enforce.
  - vkou 4y ago
    Some do, many don't. Many don't even bother getting an appropriate work visa, at their latest port of call, there's no way they are going to be paying local taxes on that work.
  - DocTomoe 4y ago
    Depending on their country of origin. Most western countries have rules that make income originating in other countries taxable in their home country (and then often have bilateral treaties that avoid income being taxed twice). Quite a few digital nomads are tax frauds, though.
    - zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
      If someone is traveling in a tourist visa, why should they pay local taxes? They'll put money into the local economies where they're traveling just like any other tourist.
      - DocTomoe 4y ago
        If someone is traveling on a tourist visa, they are not allowed to work in the host country. So now they are not only potential tax evaders both in their host country and their country of origin, a crime in many countries worthy of lengthy jail sentences, but also tack a visa violation on top of it.
        sokoloff 4y ago
        If I’m visiting country C and read my work email or take a work Zoom call, have I violated my tourist visa? If I check that email all 6 nights in my 7 day stay? At some point, I think it flips from “a genuine tourist” to “an undocumented worker”, but I don’t think it’s easy to tell exactly when, especially if the actual job isn’t a local one. If I’m on a tourist visa and taking a local job, the country’s documented workers should rightly feel cheated. If I’m on a tourist visa and brought my own job from outside the country, I’m not sure those workers have nearly as much standing to feel I’m cheating them.
        ben_w 4y ago
        > If I’m visiting country C and read my work email or take a work Zoom call, have I violated my tourist visa? If I check that email all 6 nights in my 7 day stay I would not be surprised, but that's a question for the lawyer and the answer may vary by which country you're in under a tourist visa. And likewise you may be owed overtime ;) > If I’m on a tourist visa and brought my own job from outside the country, I’m not sure those workers have nearly as much standing to feel I’m cheating them. Yeah well people are weird and not always consistent. From my point of view, people seem to care more about "immigrants taking our jobs" than they do about "foreigners staying at home and the factory was moved to where they already live" (not zero for the latter, this is just my opinion of the relative noise people seem to make).
  - cataphract 4y ago
    Usually, no, not on foreign income (with the exception that now retirees pay 10% on their pension, but it used to be 0). And even on domestic income from work, they pay only a flat tax of 20%. The income tax is normally 50.5% on income over 80k and 53% over 250k.
  - devoutsalsa 4y ago
    It depends. Generally speaking, you don’t become a tax resident of a country unless you live there for 183 days in a given tax year. Even then, getting set up to pay taxes is a challenge, as tax departments aren’t set up to accept money from a tourist who doesn’t have any official ties to the country. It can be done, but it’s a pain. As a digital nomad myself, I always planned to just never stay in a country longer than six months. As an American, I have the joy of paying American taxes anywhere I live in the world, which makes things extra fun. For now, it seems systems are not streamlined to handle the burden of a high number of short term residents. Countries will adapt over time, as it seems Portugal is doing now. Some countries issuing digital nomad visas may exempt nomads from paying taxes or make it easier to pay taxes locally.
    - logifail 4y ago
      > Generally speaking, you don’t become a tax resident of a country unless you live there for 183 days in a given tax year 183 days may indeed be sufficient to automatically qualify you for tax residency, but there are other tests, if you're not careful you may (unwittingly) become tax resident in a country with a stay of less than 183 days. Perhaps significantly less, depending on where else you've been (and for how long), and what you were doing in the year(s) before the year in question. See - for instance - the Statutory Residence Test ( https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rdr3-statutory-residence-test-srt/guidance-note-for-statutory-residence-test-srt-rdr3 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rdr3-statutory-re... ) in the UK.
  - qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
    They call it the tour, basically you travell along the mediteranean, from AirBnB to AirBnB, working from cafes.. you are not a permanent resident in any of the countries.. :D
    - nicolas_t 4y ago
      Depending on dual taxations agreements of their country of origin, they most likely would have to pay tax if they followed the law. There's often a clause in the different dual taxations agreement that says that describe how to determine tax residency in case the person hasn't stayed in any country more than 183 days. Usually, it's the country where that person has the "centre of vital interests" or sometimes can be determined by nationality. Digital nomads are still too new a phenomenon that countries really properly seek to tax them but just traveling like this without being careful or creating a company in a country with low taxation is not necessarily safe.
    - dgellow 4y ago
      It’s often repeated online but that won’t work as a defense in courts. It can be qualified as tax evasion, in theory any country visited during the “tour” could ask for taxes if they believe you’re trying to escape the system.
- nivenkos 4y ago
  VAT and income tax are scams that tax work rather than wealth. So the wealthy pay far less than the hard-working working class. We need wealth tax, property tax, land value tax, inheritance tax, capital gains tax, and nationalised resource industries so we wouldn't need any VAT or income tax at all.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> evade all taxes due to crypto exemption Wat.
- cataphract 4y ago
  This has been somewhat curtailed this year; right now profits from crypto assets are usually exempted from tax if held for at least a year and pay 28% otherwise. This is a much more favorable treatment than other financial assets, which normally pay 28% if held for over a year, but if held for less an year and you make around 80k can be added to your work income and pay the usual income tax rates (which is already 50.5% over 80k).
pjmlp 4y ago
Indeed, I was never fine with them, they were always a short sighted solution to quickly get some funds via possible investments, while making things even harder for us.
tknine 4y ago
I doubt killing the golden visa will alleviate the housing problem as it does not remove houses from the short term rental pool. The real solution would be to limit short-term rentals to some small (< 1%) portion of total stock per a neighborhood/postal code. The license for these would be given out by lottery each year. Enforce with heavy fines for operating without the license...like 30x nightly rate of the unit.

splix 4y ago

> golden visas are a loophole for sanctions against Russia's aggression No. Portugal doesn't accept Russian citizens for golden visa since the war started. And do not process applications started before. > one well known oligarch has a Portuguese golden visa No. He didn't do the golden visa. He got it in a different way. He have got it "under a law that offered naturalization to descendants of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Portugal about 500 years ago during the inquisition". And he received it about a year before the war and the sanctions.

cromka 4y ago

There's a reason why VAT is not enough and we also pay income tax to fund any country's budget and all the infrastructure. Being a digital nomad is basically a taking advantage of a bargain that is getting away with that VAT only.

seper8 4y ago
Digital nomads dont pay income tax?
- jwestbury 4y ago
  In most countries, I believe they should, but if they're being paid from another country, it may be relatively easy to get away with not paying income taxes -- since the country of residence would have no record of the income in the first place.
  - LudwigNagasena 4y ago
    As far as I know usually you can’t get a nomad visa without proof of income.
    - mejutoco 4y ago
      I wonder if savings count. In that case it could work too.
  - refurb 4y ago
    This. I know a few people who work remote and just live on tourist visas in different countries. They get paid in the US and deposited in a US account. They have no bank account, ID number, nothing in the country. It's hard to enforce.
- vkou 4y ago
  Some do, many don't. Many don't even bother getting an appropriate work visa, at their latest port of call, there's no way they are going to be paying local taxes on that work.
- DocTomoe 4y ago
  Depending on their country of origin. Most western countries have rules that make income originating in other countries taxable in their home country (and then often have bilateral treaties that avoid income being taxed twice). Quite a few digital nomads are tax frauds, though.
  - zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
    If someone is traveling in a tourist visa, why should they pay local taxes? They'll put money into the local economies where they're traveling just like any other tourist.
    - DocTomoe 4y ago
      If someone is traveling on a tourist visa, they are not allowed to work in the host country. So now they are not only potential tax evaders both in their host country and their country of origin, a crime in many countries worthy of lengthy jail sentences, but also tack a visa violation on top of it.
      - sokoloff 4y ago
        If I’m visiting country C and read my work email or take a work Zoom call, have I violated my tourist visa? If I check that email all 6 nights in my 7 day stay? At some point, I think it flips from “a genuine tourist” to “an undocumented worker”, but I don’t think it’s easy to tell exactly when, especially if the actual job isn’t a local one. If I’m on a tourist visa and taking a local job, the country’s documented workers should rightly feel cheated. If I’m on a tourist visa and brought my own job from outside the country, I’m not sure those workers have nearly as much standing to feel I’m cheating them.
        ben_w 4y ago
        > If I’m visiting country C and read my work email or take a work Zoom call, have I violated my tourist visa? If I check that email all 6 nights in my 7 day stay I would not be surprised, but that's a question for the lawyer and the answer may vary by which country you're in under a tourist visa. And likewise you may be owed overtime ;) > If I’m on a tourist visa and brought my own job from outside the country, I’m not sure those workers have nearly as much standing to feel I’m cheating them. Yeah well people are weird and not always consistent. From my point of view, people seem to care more about "immigrants taking our jobs" than they do about "foreigners staying at home and the factory was moved to where they already live" (not zero for the latter, this is just my opinion of the relative noise people seem to make).
- cataphract 4y ago
  Usually, no, not on foreign income (with the exception that now retirees pay 10% on their pension, but it used to be 0). And even on domestic income from work, they pay only a flat tax of 20%. The income tax is normally 50.5% on income over 80k and 53% over 250k.
- devoutsalsa 4y ago
  It depends. Generally speaking, you don’t become a tax resident of a country unless you live there for 183 days in a given tax year. Even then, getting set up to pay taxes is a challenge, as tax departments aren’t set up to accept money from a tourist who doesn’t have any official ties to the country. It can be done, but it’s a pain. As a digital nomad myself, I always planned to just never stay in a country longer than six months. As an American, I have the joy of paying American taxes anywhere I live in the world, which makes things extra fun. For now, it seems systems are not streamlined to handle the burden of a high number of short term residents. Countries will adapt over time, as it seems Portugal is doing now. Some countries issuing digital nomad visas may exempt nomads from paying taxes or make it easier to pay taxes locally.
  - logifail 4y ago
    > Generally speaking, you don’t become a tax resident of a country unless you live there for 183 days in a given tax year 183 days may indeed be sufficient to automatically qualify you for tax residency, but there are other tests, if you're not careful you may (unwittingly) become tax resident in a country with a stay of less than 183 days. Perhaps significantly less, depending on where else you've been (and for how long), and what you were doing in the year(s) before the year in question. See - for instance - the Statutory Residence Test ( https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rdr3-statutory-residence-test-srt/guidance-note-for-statutory-residence-test-srt-rdr3 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rdr3-statutory-re... ) in the UK.
- qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
  They call it the tour, basically you travell along the mediteranean, from AirBnB to AirBnB, working from cafes.. you are not a permanent resident in any of the countries.. :D
  - nicolas_t 4y ago
    Depending on dual taxations agreements of their country of origin, they most likely would have to pay tax if they followed the law. There's often a clause in the different dual taxations agreement that says that describe how to determine tax residency in case the person hasn't stayed in any country more than 183 days. Usually, it's the country where that person has the "centre of vital interests" or sometimes can be determined by nationality. Digital nomads are still too new a phenomenon that countries really properly seek to tax them but just traveling like this without being careful or creating a company in a country with low taxation is not necessarily safe.
  - dgellow 4y ago
    It’s often repeated online but that won’t work as a defense in courts. It can be qualified as tax evasion, in theory any country visited during the “tour” could ask for taxes if they believe you’re trying to escape the system.
nivenkos 4y ago
VAT and income tax are scams that tax work rather than wealth. So the wealthy pay far less than the hard-working working class. We need wealth tax, property tax, land value tax, inheritance tax, capital gains tax, and nationalised resource industries so we wouldn't need any VAT or income tax at all.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> evade all taxes due to crypto exemption Wat.

cataphract 4y ago
This has been somewhat curtailed this year; right now profits from crypto assets are usually exempted from tax if held for at least a year and pay 28% otherwise. This is a much more favorable treatment than other financial assets, which normally pay 28% if held for over a year, but if held for less an year and you make around 80k can be added to your work income and pay the usual income tax rates (which is already 50.5% over 80k).

pjmlp 4y ago

Indeed, I was never fine with them, they were always a short sighted solution to quickly get some funds via possible investments, while making things even harder for us.

tknine 4y ago

I doubt killing the golden visa will alleviate the housing problem as it does not remove houses from the short term rental pool. The real solution would be to limit short-term rentals to some small (< 1%) portion of total stock per a neighborhood/postal code. The license for these would be given out by lottery each year. Enforce with heavy fines for operating without the license...like 30x nightly rate of the unit.