The US is the only country I know of that demands income taxes from its citizens when they are non-resident. Citizens of most countries would expect to pay local income taxes only when they emigrate.
It's still a little weird to me though, as someone who would expect my own country to relinquish all tax demands if I'm not actually there!
They wanted to tax me on my "worldwide" income and requested that I pay the difference between what I was making in the US vs. what I would be paying in Canada had I been living there.
It wasn't something I had considered in my planning so good to look into before you go!
Spain is the country I wanted to move to anyway, which Brexit destroyed my hopes of.
For anyone else that finds this potentially interesting, this seems useful:
https://balcellsgroup.com/work-remotely-from-spain/
https://balcellsgroup.com/non-lucrative-residency/
(note that they're just the first links showing up in DDG, so there might be better ones around)
Perhaps there should be something like this: An International Creative or Digital Visa that countries can sign onto.
This proposal is a good start for what it should be: http://artsvisa.org/ireland/
Have something to contribute. Be able to support yourself. Don't compete for an in country job and any country should welcome your residence/citizenship.
There's no reason something like this doesn't exist in a global digital age.
I think agree with this, but I'm not sure what this looks like apart from "remote employment". How do you not compete for an in-country job without being employed remotely? Even if you're a self-employed plumber, for example, you're still competing for a job in your host country (your presence increases the supply of plumbing services without the corresponding increase in demand).
I’d be curious to hear from the people who downvoted me though.
It’s location is almost perfect for Americans and real estate seems cheap too. Even with cushy developer salary NZ real estate cost is way too burdensome.
Living costs in Europe are incredibly uneven, like they are in the states. Denmark is much more expensive than next door Netherlands, for example, which is actually quite reasonable (and perhaps Americans might even find it cheap outside of Amsterdam).
Note that they say cost of living excluding rent is 8% higher but that rents are lower—I don’t think their rent analysis is by area but rather by number of bedrooms. Typically rent per sq foot/meter/etc is much cheaper in the US than in European countries, and I would wager that it’s the same with Netherlands specifically.
Wouldn't this be tax fraud to claim an address in US as your paycheck address and not actually live there?
I am genuinely curious. This will save me tens and thousands of dollars every year if this isn't fraud.
why the downvotes, i don't get it.
That’s an entirely different issue. Yes, New York state will likely take issue with the scenario you describe, but not at the federal level (what this thread is about). Further nobody, but you, was indicating lying about their address.
how is it different?
OP is claiming an address in USA for payroll as his residence but it isn't actually his residence. How is this not fraud.
all the examples i know of like gitlab, mozilla ect adjust it to local country comp.
anyone know if such an employer actually exists in US?
Yes. I’ve personally seen it happen multiple times at different employers, each with unique factors.
There are way to many factors at play here to make broad assumptions that no employer does it...
- first and foremost, Covid changed everything when it comes to remote salary norms
- Duration of move (some employers would be more lenient for 6-12mo vs permanent move)
- level of seniority (which correlates somewhat with how hard it is to replace said employee if employer says no)
- how long as the employee worked for employer (another factor in how much it impacts employer if employee moves anyway and goes to work for another company)
- how bad the employer wants to retain said employee (Multiple previous emplayers, big and small, have made exceptions for specific coworkers)
- it’s important enough to mention again, Covid changed everything.
Yes you can make broad assumptions that almost no hr, payroll, legal dept of any company is setup to deal with taxes, labor laws ect across hundreds of different countries.
Yes exceptions exist.
> - it’s important enough to mention again, Covid changed everything.
No it didn't. Do you have even a single example of an employer thats allowing ppl work longterm from whichever country they please due to covid?
Yes, I do, but I’m not doing your research for you. You’ve been extremely combative and flat rude and incredulous this entire thread, so I’m stopping my participation. If you genuinely are in pursuit of knowledge and not to just pick random fights on the Internet, then I implore you to use a different approach.
I'll try to be better.
I did do my research but I havent found any company that,
1. Lets you move to any country
2. Adjusts your payroll to that country's address.
3. Doesn't adjust your compensation from what you were getting paid in USA.
I do know of some exceptions where people were allowed to move to a country where they already have a home office. One of my coworkers moved to Dublin and my company had a home office in Ireland. Some of my coworkers are also stuck in countries like India due to covid and HR allows them to work from there for now. But it is not any sort of company policy to let ppl work from a random country forever while maintaining their US salaries.
But the claim here is that you can move to any random country like Barbados.
I'm pretty sure the only gray area in this arrangement is "working in the US" while staying in another country on a tourist visa, but it's pretty ambiguous. I'm working for a US company and getting direct deposits to a US bank as a US citizen. If I am on a trip to another country and I sign into my company's VPN for a work-related video conference, and maybe fix some bugs, am I working illegally? Maybe, but immigration laws aren't really written with that scenario in mind.
This is a topic that frequently came up in conversations with ex-pats, since once you start doing this you'll end up meeting lots of other remote workers doing the same thing. On the one hand, you are injecting a lot of money from your home country into the local economy, which increases GDP and supports local businesses. On the other, you are using public services without paying taxes to the host country. In practice, you can't use services like universal healthcare or free education without being a legal resident, so it's debatable whether your presence is a net negative for the local economy. It's probably not legal, but like I said, the immigration laws don't take this scenario into account. I was forthright with all of the immigration officials I spoke to and all of them just kind of shrugged their shoulders and renewed my tourist visa anyway. I figured that some countries would start writing new legislation and creating new types of visas to take advantage of this scenario, and we can see this happening now.
If your question is "is this legal", the answer is "it's complicated, but probably not". If you're asking if it's possible to do this long term, the answer is yes, it's not only possible but pretty easy. I was able to do this for almost a decade with no issues whatsoever. I'm glad that some countries are starting to think about this, because I'd much rather live with confidence that my work situation is accounted for than have to wonder if my residence there is dependent on the interpretation of each individual in the immigration department.
claim here was that you continue to get 'cushy US salary' no matter which country and you get your payroll to the home address in that country. That sounds really hard to believe to me.
What exactly does this mean. then?
What range of numbers qualify as 'cushy US salary'.
This is really absurd to classify range of numbers as 'us salary' , 'indian salary' ect.
Do you have any reasonable suspicion as to which person is making more? I think most people do.
It might be other forms of fraud, but not sure how you come to the conclusion it’s tax fraud. The US government doesn’t care where you live, as long as you are a citizen, you have to file and pay taxes owed (which admittedly, might not be as high as they normally would be if a resident under some circumstances). It doesn’t matter if you haven’t lived in the US for decades and work for a foreign company, unless you renounce your citizenship, the IRS wants their claws in it.
How though? You have to claim a local US address for your payroll though. right? What will that address be?
I understand this, obviously. You seemed to have implied that you would still be paid 'cushy us salary' in ireland, thats what i am talking about. does your current employer still pay you US salary if you live in ireland?
I would love to work for such an employer, i want to move back to my home country and still keep my US salary.
Yes, but this varies by company, and is predicated on the assumption that the move wouldn’t interfere with my job performance. E.g., I would still work my normal US hours because my job requires some amount of communication with my team.
I am really surprised that some employers are willing to go such great lengths.
ok i read that as 'salary paid to a US resident' , then not sure what 'US salary' means. It would be 'Barbados salary' if they are getting paid in barbados.