4 ms·

Ok, you raised some very good points. first things first, you do get unemployment and sick benefits if you insure yourself, as self employed this is voluntary i

Ok, you raised some very good points. first things first, you do get unemployment and sick benefits if you insure yourself, as self employed this is voluntary in Germany and in Austria you do get some basic coverage with statutory insurance afaik. The specific case you described is not tax avoidance but tax fraud and anyone can replicate it or report it depending on their preferred moral inclination. I'm talking about tax avoidance, again, I'm from eastern Europe and I know a _lot_ of people who have dependant sources of income but act as independent contractors despite working countless years for one employer and as a result paying much less on taxes despite having 5x income of average employee and this is taken out of said average employees salary who don't have the opportunity to work in high demand IT field whether due to education or not having above average IQ. Of course there are a lot of people like you described in food, entertainment, maintenance or house building service who take cash on hand and never report it, but as said this is fraud not avoidance.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>I'm talking about tax avoidance, again How is working as a freelancer for a foreign entity tax avoidance, when your following the freelancing laws in your country and what you're doing is 10% legal? Just because you're working for a foreign company remotely because the company doesn't have an office here, doesn't mean you're a tax dodger. It just reads like you have a personal vendetta against people working as freelancers for paying less taxes in some countries even though what they're doing is 100% legal. Why are you so upset about some SW dev freelancing remotely for some foreign company to provide for his family, and not upset about all those mega-corporations who have perfected the art of tax avoidance down to a T, that they basically pay no taxes in your country because they siphon everything trough some Dutch/Irish/Luxemburgish funnel.
- necovek 3y ago
  Who's to say they are not upset at megacorporations? However, I don't see them being upset at anyone. In Serbia, I fully used similar benefits before they were forbidden, but I never considered this to be "fair": it was simply available for other reasons (avoid bookkeeping overhead for tiny businesses) and my foreign contractor (really, employment) relationship fit in just well. Yes, it was 100% legal, but it would be disingenious to claim how a local employee making similar tax and social security contributions was making roughly 5 times less net income is "fair". State was certainly benefiting from me exporting services, but not 5x as much. When it became abused by local companies, those independence provisions were added in, effectively prohibiting it, but I wasn't "upset" even though it meant a larger tax burden and a more complicated setup (an LLC I am employed in).

FirmwareBurner 3y ago

>I'm talking about tax avoidance, again How is working as a freelancer for a foreign entity tax avoidance, when your following the freelancing laws in your country and what you're doing is 10% legal? Just because you're working for a foreign company remotely because the company doesn't have an office here, doesn't mean you're a tax dodger. It just reads like you have a personal vendetta against people working as freelancers for paying less taxes in some countries even though what they're doing is 100% legal. Why are you so upset about some SW dev freelancing remotely for some foreign company to provide for his family, and not upset about all those mega-corporations who have perfected the art of tax avoidance down to a T, that they basically pay no taxes in your country because they siphon everything trough some Dutch/Irish/Luxemburgish funnel.

necovek 3y ago
Who's to say they are not upset at megacorporations? However, I don't see them being upset at anyone. In Serbia, I fully used similar benefits before they were forbidden, but I never considered this to be "fair": it was simply available for other reasons (avoid bookkeeping overhead for tiny businesses) and my foreign contractor (really, employment) relationship fit in just well. Yes, it was 100% legal, but it would be disingenious to claim how a local employee making similar tax and social security contributions was making roughly 5 times less net income is "fair". State was certainly benefiting from me exporting services, but not 5x as much. When it became abused by local companies, those independence provisions were added in, effectively prohibiting it, but I wasn't "upset" even though it meant a larger tax burden and a more complicated setup (an LLC I am employed in).