Hacker News Reader

Comment by jo-m | Hacker News Reader

> I can also work a US based job, remotely in the EU, completely legally.

You can also do that 100% legally as a non US citizen (I did), with the added advantage of not paying US taxes.

You have to pay taxes and social security in the country where you reside, not where you are a citizen and/or work (mostly).

View on HN

In some countries, yes. This tends to be uncommon in the European Union.

Croatia at the moment is a black sheep in the European Union, though, as it has an easy to get digital nomad visa: https://www.total-croatia-news.com/news/digital-nomads-in-cr...

For the digital nomad visa in Estonia, for example, you need connections there to essentially get it.

Czech Republic has a self-employment visa that allows you to work without formal business connections within the country, which is pretty unique among the European Union.

But no country will forbid you to reside in it when you are a citizen of it, and work for a remote company. I think the misunderstanding here from my side was that with "dual citizenship" you meant "having an additional non US passport", but I understood it as "also having an US passport".

> You have to pay taxes and social security in the country where you reside, not where you are a citizen and/or work (mostly).

Only US & Eriteria taxes its residents/citizens' income, no matter where it generated. So a US born baby (us citizen by birth), moved to Europe back with parents, or even an adult us citizen working outside US has to file the IRS Return. Every year.

Not if you're yearly income is less than $12000, and I don't think they'll go after you even if you make $100 thousand, because you still won't have to pay any US even if you do file (most countries have agreements with the US to avoid double-taxation below a certain amount). I know a lot of American citizens who live permanently in Canada, and not all of them file US taxes, including my mother in the decades she's lived in Canada.

Technically, by law, return is required for any income over $0.50, no taxes till world wide $12000(US+NonUS) or $107000 Foreign/NonUS income, but still, IRS expects a return filed. In practice, yes, not much problem.

There are advantages to filing even when it's not required. Oddly enough, the US government still paid me $1200 + $600 of COVID economic relief (auto-deposited to my US bank account) even though I haven't lived in the US for many years. I didn't think I'd be eligible, but apparently I am (just in case, I haven't spent the money yet). It's weird that they gave the money so freely.

The money was given out pretty indiscriminately (on purpose, they didn't want vetting to slow down the process). There has been massive fraud, but on the otherhand the benefits made a real difference to a lot of people at a time when that mattered. I think keeping the money "in escrow" is a good idea. I know I'm above the income limits for some of the benefits, but still got them. I expect I'll need to pay them back just as part of normal tax fillings.

Unconditional benefits are less susceptible to fraud because there aren't conditions to evade. They're also easier to administer and are generally progressive, as a fixed universal benefit is more useful to poor people than high income people, due to the diminishing marginal utility of most benefits. Taxation, as you say, does the rest.

Not a professional, but as long as your 2018 or 2019 return falls in eligibility box, you got money, & its good.

Not true, US is one of the only countries that requires you to pay taxes no matter you live or where you work as long as you're a US citizen and alive the IRS requires you to pay income tax.

I think the other one is Eriteria.

That was my point (although possibly poorly worded): in this particular instance, dual citizenship is not an advantage. Just being a citizen of Croatia would have been better.

Did your US company pay you as a contractor? Set up a foreign entity in your country to pay you? How did you get paid by American company, legally, while in a European country?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com