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Comment by derekp7 | Hacker News Reader

I can see the desire for a country to control who works for companies in the country, as that takes money out of their economy. But if someone is living there and bringing in money from off shore, and spending it there, that seems like it should be encouraged as there is no local resource drain, and a local economic benefit. Anyone know why this is frowned upon?

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I think 'spending [money] there' is maybe not quite enough. Taxes pay for infrastructure maintenance, law enforcement, fire, public safety concerns, etc. If you're not being paid by a local entity and do not put the money in a local bank account, it's really hard (for the local gov) to figure out/prove how much you should pay in taxes. Basically you might be a drain on resources and the community if you don't pay taxes, even if you're spending some money there. That's likely what they are trying to avoid.

Well tourists are similarly a "drain" on the economy. Yet they are welcome. Logically speaking, they are as much as drain a "digital nomads". For the period they are there they use as much infrastructure as digital nomads. Yet no one thinks about taxing tourists.

You are oversimplifying things. The two are only equivalent if the average daily spend on tourism related activities is the same. After all, taxes, fees, and jobs (and hence taxes at one remove) are generated in these activities with a specific eye to counterbalancing the "drain". The goal is a net positive effect.

If you are minimizing the amount of money you spend while doing remote work, you may well be on the "wrong" side of this balance, from a revenue point of view.

Back packers are a similar category. They live in hostels and spend minimum amount on tourism. They are still tourists by every definition of the word.

Obviously - that's what I meant about a "net positive".

It's reasonable to expect you can find individual tourists who use more in infrastructure than they contribute to the local economy - the system doesn't break down so long as the average case means overall it is significantly net positive.

If "digital nomads" are net negative, then I expect you'll see eventually constraints arise. Assuming long enough for a) local governments to figure this out and b) that it's a big enough impact to care about. It's also plausible that "digital nomads" remain such a small number of people that nobody is really fussed about the impact, and the legalities of what they are doing remaining fuzzy is only used as a justification to refuse visa/entry to anyone who has proved annoying to the people who issue same.

> Yet no one thinks about taxing tourists.

German speaking countries do tax tourists.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ortstaxe

I don't think that's actually frowned upon. Your reasoning makes sense and many countries should be happy if nomads earn money abroad and spend it in their local businesses, but often the laws are just outdated and still designed around the assumption that people earn money in the country where they work.

I think if they allowed this type of behaviour then it would be ripe for abuse.

Company A could simply incorporate a subsidiary in another country, then said subsidiary could hire workers to work for company A's whilst residing in company A's country. No work permit required.

What you've seen in response to this type of thing, at least in Thailand, is that it's harder to stay in the country for a long period of time even legitimately.

Visa lengths across land borders are being cut. Back-to-back visas are now limited. X months in X months out rules are being adopted. It's getting very difficult to stay in the country for longer than 6 months.

It's actually not impossible to get a work permit in Thailand but it is expensive (cheaper if you are an American or married to a Thai citizen). Most people just take the risk.

They aren't paying income/payroll tax. They are draining local resources, they need to go to the hospital when they get sick, call the police, firefighters. They need trash pickup and sewer services.

Also many countries have different controls for tourists or visitors and permanent residents.

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