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Comment by ur-whale | Hacker News Reader

How is the income tax situation in Portugal?

If you're not already a tax resident of Portugal and you decide to legally move there, you can apply for a special tax rate as a "non-habitual resident" that gives you a lower tax rate for ten years.

https://www.livinginportugal.com/en/moving-to-portugal/tax-r...

Interesting. I wasn't aware that it was already valid or so lax (20% vs 48%!). This measure was sold by government as a way of bringing back our emmigrants.

Good question. If you work for a local company income tax is "steep". see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Portugal

Portugal has followed the "Nordics" model when it comes to taxes; income is taxed higher but services (healthcare, schools, roads and other infrastructure] is much better than in the US [or most of the rest of the world for that matter!].

The much cheaper lifestyle in Portugal more than makes up for the higher taxes.

I'm not a "tax adviser" and HN is not the place for that "tax efficiency" advice. But you should consider setting up a Ltd Company and paying yourself/co-founders [Tax Free] dividends.

I would [highly] recommend watching "Startup Legal Mechanics" [YCombinator Startup School]: https://youtu.be/BTShgZxiNV8

tldr; start a company [separate legal entity].

> paying yourself/co-founders [Tax Free] dividends.

I'm not a tax expert but I don't think you can do it. Dividends are not tax free. You have to pay 28%(IRS) + ~20% (IRC) so in the end you pay more than a regular freelancer (for salaries below €80K).

edit: except if you are a non-habitual resident..

As a non-habitual resident in Portugal or Spain, it seems that the dividends are tax free if they come from a foreign source but you still have to pay taxes in the country of origin [1].

So maybe if you set up your company in another tax friendly country, you would be able to pay your corporate tax and taxes on your dividends there.

[1]: http://www.newco.pro/blog/en/portugal-or-spain-two-tax-regim...

Portuguese IRS: https://github.com/galfarragem/learning-notes/blob/master/no...

So basically, if you make more thank 50k euros per year, you start working for your own benefit around mid-june. Yeah ... pass.

Yup.

Yes. Unless you live alone in the woods drawing no benefit from the democratic, rule of law, first-world country you live in, paga e não bufes, which translates roughly to "cough up".

There are democratic, rule of law, first world countries that work way better than Portugal in pretty mcuh all areas you care to look at and where the top income tax bracket is less than 30%.

This is not about paying taxes, it's when those taxes are essentially wasted by the giant administrative leeches that runs countries like Portugal.

If you're saying that mismanagement and corruption are issues, then yes, of course you're right. But then again, remind me how much is the top bracket in Belgium? Austria? Germany? Denmark? Sweden? Much better run countries (in superficial evaluation at least), yet all have 50%+ tax rates at the top.

Top income tax bracket in Belgium is 50%, but this is after the employer has paid ~30% of that in social security contributions. So your 35K EUR net salary costs your employer roughly 100K (I rounded up, so this is an exaggeration). And you get a whopping 21% VAT rate, a dividend tax of 30%, several other taxes which are seemingly aimed at dissuading people from investing. Oh and there's a corporate profit tax of ~33%.

Long story short: run for the hills, don't come to Belgium.

FTFY

>Long story short: it's one of the best countries in the world to live in, by almost any metric.

Yeah, I'd take that deal.

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