[HN Gopher] So, You Want to Become a Digital Nomad
___________________________________________________________________
So, You Want to Become a Digital Nomad
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 83 points
Date : 2021-05-28 15:19 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| OldGoodNewBad wrote:
| It's a tourism advertisement couched as an informational piece.
| My guess is paid placement? She also claims "accountants say"
| without telling us which ones. I'm afraid I have to send this
| paper back for correction, maybe she can hand in the revision
| before it's due on Monday.
| comprev wrote:
| "...said David McKeegan, who co-founded Greenback Tax Services,
| an accounting firm for U.S. expatriates."
|
| "...according to MBO Partners, which provides services for
| self-employed workers."
|
| Sounds like an infomercial to me for Greenback Tax Services.
| 55555 wrote:
| I didn't read the article because if I ever have to read
| another article about "digital nomads" I'll kill myself. But
| I saw your comment and just wanted to note I've used
| Greenback for years and they're pretty fantastic. YMMV as it
| surely depends which accountant you get. Jeremiah is mine.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| Unfortunately I think it's just a lazy piece. Here's an actual
| paid post we did via NYT a few years back for reference, they
| do try to make it clear.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/paidpost/estonia/how-estonia-is-usin...
| goodpoint wrote:
| Can we please put clear tags/markers for US-specific articles?
|
| Not everybody is American.
| bichonnages wrote:
| I feel more and more that it is necessary to add [In the US]
| for many of my internet readings.
| mhb wrote:
| Isn't it a clue that it's in the New York Times?
| yepthatsreality wrote:
| Better question: is it really a burden to have clicked on
| something not relevant to yourself? The mods are not the
| secretaries and filing and sorting team of HackerNews.
| dudeman13 wrote:
| Is the New York Times a newspaper that only publishes things
| relevant for Americans?
|
| I wouldn't know, I'm not American.
| fincamad wrote:
| It's an American media outlet, so being upset about seeing
| American-oriented news in an American media outlet seems
| confusing.
| goodpoint wrote:
| No. The article could discuss digital nomad lifestyle from
| many angles that are not US-specific.
| omgwtfbbq wrote:
| It's an American Media outlet's article posted on an American
| website during prime American working hours. Unless you are
| Canadian you really have no place to complain...
| manquer wrote:
| Considering the topic is about being _digital nomad_ , it is
| bit ironic that the article and you are both focusing on
| American centeric points of view.
|
| Nytimes has an International Edition, there are versions in
| Spanish and Chinese, classifying it as an American website is
| perhaps a bit myopic.
|
| Time zones have very little meaning if you are a digital
| nomad like me and I hope many others on this website, or work
| with multi geography teams as it increasingly common last 15
| months.
|
| The title is misleading to people like OP and me who wanted
| to learn something useful beyond tax woes (for Americans or
| others) when considering a digital nomad lifestyle. Yes it is
| important topic for Americans and had the author just
| mentioned a paragraph about that it would not be a problem,
| however the entire article is basically a puff piece for the
| tax consultants quoted and contains only talking points on
| why you really need such expertise.
| mhb wrote:
| So the concern should really be directed to the NYT
| editorial staff who writes the titles for their articles?
| manquer wrote:
| If HN was a pure aggregator and never changed the title I
| would agree that it should be directed at NYT.
|
| HN also editorializes the content posted here, they do
| change titles here to reflect some of the values or
| ethics that this form embodies, so asking for the title
| changed to better reflect the content is a fair ask.
| da39a3ee wrote:
| Jesus. This is not complicated. Just go to a country for as long
| as the tourist visa will let you (often 3 months or so), and work
| there, and enjoy it. Don't offer to pay tax to that country
| unless you want to. You only get one fucking life!
| throwawayacc2 wrote:
| I know right? And you got downvoted too. These people are so
| neurotic!
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/pihLs
| qshaman wrote:
| I wonder who in a foreign country, let's say Japan for example,
| will be checking on a tourist, to see if he/she/x is doing work
| while on a coffee shop, or just watching youtube. How can another
| country prove i was working over there, and not writing code for
| an open source project or something similar? I'm honestly
| curious. Is there any mechanism for that?
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| Any other Americans avoid things that they might otherwise do due
| to real or perceived tax complications? I was hesitant to hire a
| nanny as that would make me an employer, and add various tax
| responsibilities. I did a little bit of Robinhood "investing"
| with a small amount of money during the pandemic just for grins,
| thinking everything would be neatly wrapped up on a 1099 form,
| but I accidentally found myself with an unexpected,
| incomprehensible (to me) "contracts or straddles" 6781 tax form
| to fill out, all because I made $25 in a specific type of fund. I
| haven't seriously considered doing digital nomading like the
| folks in the article but it is something that I might like to try
| at some point...although the tax issues do scare me.
|
| It's not that I don't want to pay the appropriate taxes, I just
| don't want to accidentally do the wrong thing and then kick off a
| painful audit.
| tshaddox wrote:
| I remember many years ago I bought a small amount of Apple
| stock for fun, and come tax time, I realized I would need to
| pay TurboTax like $80 to do my taxes because I had make like $8
| of dividends from that Apple stock.
| ghaff wrote:
| I suspect that there have been some years where I've ended up
| paying my accountant more to handle some complexity that
| involved phone conversations and additional forms than the
| dollar amount of the complexity in question.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > I did a little bit of Robinhood "investing" with a small
| amount of money during the pandemic just for grins, thinking
| everything would be neatly wrapped up on a 1099 form, but I
| accidentally found myself with an unexpected, incomprehensible
| (to me) "contracts or straddles" 6781 tax form to fill out, all
| because I made $25 in a specific type of fund.
|
| I don't use Robinhood for serious trading, but any major
| brokerage should be compatible with major tax software. With
| TurboTax I just import the data from my brokerage and it's
| mostly finished. There are a few unique situations where you
| might need to confirm some options, but it's largely automated.
| NationalPark wrote:
| Robinhood provides the same thing, but it is annoying to see
| an unusual tax form if you're used to W2 and 1099. I wonder
| what kind of fund he was buying though. He couldn't have been
| actually trading straddles, because Robinhood would have had
| to approve him, which involves acknowledging you understand
| the tax implications...
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| I don't think I did anything too out of the ordinary. Using
| the typical Robinhood UI, I bought and sold Invesco DB US
| Dollar Index Bearish Fund (UDN), which didn't require any
| extra work on my part compared to trading $SPY or $TSLA or
| whatever. Then I got a Schedule K-1 from Invesco and
| instructions to file a Form 6781. It was a separate form
| from the 1099 that Robinhood sent me and not auto-imported
| from Robinhood to TurboTax.
| ghaff wrote:
| A K-1 is what I get from a Charitable Remainder Unitary
| Trust. (Basically an annuity from donating appreciated
| assets.) Never looked into the details of the form--
| that's why I have an accountant--but seems to relate to
| some sort of partnership interest.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| Yeah, the form lists me as a limited partner in the
| partnership and lists my purchase price of the ETF as
| "capital contributed during the year" and my sale price
| of the ETF as "withdrawals & distributions".
|
| I really don't understand why trading that particular ETF
| triggers this tax form vs listing the gain or loss on a
| 1099 just like every other stock or fund I traded.
| Probably something about the underlying currency trading?
| But if I had known it was going to mean spending hours
| researching the correct way to file, I probably would
| have skipped that particular investment.
| ghaff wrote:
| It seems because the fund is basically a bundle of
| futures contracts and therefore "The Fund is not a mutual
| fund or any other type of Investment Company within the
| meaning of the Investment Company Act of 1940, as
| amended, and is not subject to regulation thereunder."
| But, yeah, I wouldn't have dug that deeply in all
| probability and I'm sure the details are hyper-technical.
|
| https://www.invesco.com/us/financial-
| products/etfs/product-d...
| bogota wrote:
| I really do want to do the right thing but its hard when I am
| unable to find any clear guidelines. I have been traveling and
| working outside of the country for over a year now. Ultimately
| I just set where i live as my parents house and called it a
| day. The company didn't want to work with me on doing it
| properly so im not sure how i would be able to. Additionally
| they aren't even paying my state taxes properly because they
| "don't have it setup" so im being forced to pay tax to a state
| I have no presence in. This is a company with several thousand
| people and my situation is not uncommon across the company.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| What I did for 2020:
|
| - spend 330+ days per year outside the USA
|
| - specify that I had foreign earned income (based on the
| physical presence test)
|
| - specified the foreign address at which I stayed the longest
|
| - claimed foreign earned income exclusion
|
| Before I did any of the above, I paid an expat tax specialist
| $250 and asked a bunch of questions about how the FEIE works.
| Worth every penny.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > I did a little bit of Robinhood "investing" with a small
| amount of money during the pandemic just for grins, thinking
| everything would be neatly wrapped up on a 1099 form, but I
| accidentally found myself with an unexpected, incomprehensible
| (to me) "contracts or straddles" 6781 tax form to fill out, all
| because I made $25 in a specific type of fund
|
| I've had the exact same experience, but with a K-1 (?)
| document. It basically meant i was a partner of an LLC i think,
| and it ended up being a TON more work, and i got charged more
| from turbo-tax... so i ended up losing money on that
| investment.
|
| Worst part is that the company mailed me a paper document
| instead of from robinhood over digital medium, so i had to
| transcribe like 10 docs.
| kempbellt wrote:
| Definitely. I don't mind paying taxes (for the most part)
| because their purpose makes sense in a lot of cases, but I hate
| _doing_ taxes.
|
| A single W2 salary is so much simpler. Taxes are automatically
| deducted and I don't have to think about much.
|
| Luckily, I do have a stable residential address that any mail
| can be sent to, and it is in the same state as my employer, but
| I am essentially a digital nomad. Able to work anywhere with an
| internet connection - even from my phone's hotspot if I want.
| Occasionally I camp out for a week and work in the woods. Or
| pick up and drive to another town for a while. It's not a bad
| setup. Feels like I have the best of both worlds.
|
| If the logistics were more complicated I probably wouldn't
| bother with being as nomadic.
| seniorThrowaway wrote:
| > but I hate doing taxes
|
| Same here. I find it especially ridiculous because the IRS
| generally has all the information already for the majority of
| US taxpayers, W2's and 1099's from employers, financial
| institutions, casinos, etc. They should be able to send
| people a proposed return with a refund or amount owed and if
| you review and agree you simply sign and collect or pay. All
| this redundant data entry is a huge waste of time. I've heard
| people say the tax preparation industry lobbies against this
| but don't know if that is true or not.
| nemosaltat wrote:
| >they should be able to send people a proposed refund or
| amount owed
|
| It is my understanding that in most European counties, this
| is exactly how it works.
| tharkun__ wrote:
| At least in Germany there are so many ways to get
| deductions that you really want "do your taxes". Even as
| a regular employee. Especially while I was employed at a
| consulting company. Even as a regular employee you can
| claim part of your commute (IIRC you could claim the
| distance from your home to work). Then as a contractor
| (though I was not self employed but a regular employee of
| the consulting company) I could claim the entire thing
| IIRC meaning both traveling to and from work and even
| better, if going between clients in a single day that can
| be claimed. You could only claim the 'shortest path'
| unless you could prove 'significant time savings' by
| taking a longer route. The deduction was based on the
| distance driven. Also a daily amount for food was
| claimable for example but even as a contractor only for
| IIRC up to 3 months. And there's more like this and
| probably stuff I wasn't even aware of and left on the
| table.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| > I've heard people say the tax preparation industry
| lobbies against this but don't know if that is true or not.
|
| It's true and it's infuriating.
|
| https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-
| turbotax-20-year-f...
| ghaff wrote:
| While I don't disagree, for anyone whose taxes really are
| just a W-2 and a few 1099s, no changes in residency,
| dependents, etc., filling out their taxes is pretty
| straightforward.
| atatatat wrote:
| Obligatory: this is Intuit's fault (turbo tax, mint).
| ghaff wrote:
| Which probably means that technically you're probably
| supposed to be filing a bunch of state tax forms.
|
| I was just posting elsewhere:
| https://www.concur.com/newsroom/article/what-are-state-
| tax-i...
|
| Basically, companies are apparently starting to more closely
| track employee travel and state filing requirements. Not sure
| the exact impetus other than a lot more remote work happening
| --although this pre-dates COVID.
| gred wrote:
| You'd probably do it under the table. I once spent a few months
| working from Spain. Prior to departure, I also wanted to do
| things by the book, but my tax and visa questions to the
| Spanish consulate kept getting deflected in that "I'm going to
| misunderstand your question in a way that makes it clear you
| should simply use a standard tourist visa instead of making
| your life harder, but I'm not going to come right out and say
| that" kind of way. IMO, it becomes a real issue when your
| travel pattern becomes more "expat" than "digital nomad" (stay
| abroad much longer, don't move around as much).
| opportune wrote:
| Glad you brought this up, it really shows that working/visas
| need to be rethought. Most countries should have no problem
| if I show up on a tourist visa to stay for a few months but
| continue to work for a foreign company remotely - and
| defacto, they don't, as your experience demonstrates - but
| it's technically not allowed (or even legal?).
|
| I'm not entirely sure what kind of loopholes allowing remote
| work on what would normally be a tourist visa/stay open up,
| but surely it's preferable for all parties in the "average"
| case for it to be allowed.
| geocar wrote:
| > Most countries should have no problem if I show up on a
| tourist visa to stay for a few months but continue to work
| for a foreign company remotely
|
| But some do.
|
| Be careful.
| prewett wrote:
| I think the thing with tourist visas is that you can't work
| for a _local_ company. (Also you might need to get paid in
| a non-local bank account.) To work for a local company you
| need a work visa.
|
| In some ways, a standard tourist is still working for their
| foreign company, they just are using their allotment of
| get-paid-for-doing-nothing days. Likewise, a guy who wants
| to workation for a week still is effectively a tourist. At
| some point you seem less touristy, which is probably why
| tourist visas are typically around 90 days.
| ghaff wrote:
| Some countries (like China as I recall) are strict about
| getting business visas with a letter of introduction,
| etc. if you're doing something like attending a
| conference. But, yes, in general Western countries are
| mostly fine at least with other Western countries so long
| as you don't work for a local company.
| ska wrote:
| It's not just duration though - if you and I both enter a
| country on a 30 day tourist visa, say, and you work
| remotely on your laptop from a hotel but I do on-site
| sales or service visits... are we really doing this same
| thing?
| ghaff wrote:
| The difference is mostly plausible deniability. If I'm
| speaking at an event or meeting with local customers,
| it's hard to deny that I'm doing business in the country.
| If I'm just working remotely from my laptop, who knows
| that I'm not just being a tourist?
| [deleted]
| jacksonkmarley wrote:
| Yes this has the ring of truth, I went through a very similar
| experience spending some time working in France. Totally
| legit, paid by my company in another country and hosted by a
| French company for a short placement.
|
| Total bureaucratic fail, the French company just told me the
| specific visa was not going to happen, so I cut my stay to
| fit the tourist limits and went on that visa.
| hayksaakian wrote:
| most people with complex tax situations pay a accountant
| $500-2000 per year to do their taxes and move on with their
| life.
| organsnyder wrote:
| Yep. We have a complex tax situation this year (a first for
| us), and our accountant has saved us an amount equal to 10x
| what we're paying him.
| opportune wrote:
| It's not just about paying an accountant but also not
| accidentally doing something that ends up highly taxable.
| Example: moving to a country without a tax treaty with the US
| and getting double taxed, at least temporarily.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| I had a US citizen colleague who moved from Singapore to
| the UK and just got absolutely killed on tax - I can't
| remember the exact details but there was some kind of
| annual (or less frequent) election he had to make that was
| correct for Singapore but meant he ended up paying full US
| and UK taxes on his income with very little relief.
| doopy1 wrote:
| I thought that in tax treaty situations you only pay the
| maximum tax rate? So the place you lived/ worked gets their
| tax cut or the US gets the difference (or something along
| those lines). Hard to imagine someone paying 70% of their
| income in taxes just for living somewhere else for a little
| while.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| It isn't that simple in practice unless your finances are
| trivial. Even under a tax treaty there are a several
| circumstances where you'll pay more total taxes than if
| you solely paid taxes in either country. Tax incidence is
| determined per income type, it is not based on your total
| tax return; you can pay more taxes locally than you would
| in the US and _still_ owe a lot of taxes to the US.
| Similarly, differences in definitions, recognition,
| taxation across types of income can differ between
| countries such that you end up paying taxes that are not
| recognized by the US and therefore are not credited as
| taxes paid. It is pretty complicated.
|
| The US tax code places an indefensible burden on expats.
| Also, some States (looking at you California) can require
| you to pay income taxes even if you live overseas for the
| entire year.
| ska wrote:
| While that's probably right in spirit most of the time
| for simple taxes, this entirely depends on the tax
| treaty.
|
| Other factors to think about:
|
| - not all countries _have_ tax treaties, the default is
| you owe in both places
|
| - tax deferment schemes complicate things (e.g. 401(k)),
| the countries won't look at this income the same way
|
| - some tax treaties require specific actions, missing
| these may leave you owing
|
| - not all income types will be treated the same way in
| both jurisdiction (e.g. cap gains, rental
| properties,etc.)
|
| - etc.
| ageitgey wrote:
| You can also get caught up if you move between countries
| that have tax treaties but where the tax years don't align
| on the calendar and where the schedule for paying estimated
| taxes are different, like the US and the UK.
|
| The US tax year runs from Jan - Dec, with a quarterly
| estimated tax payment schedule for self-employed people. In
| the UK, it runs from Apr - Mar, with bi-annual tax bills.
| So there's a point at the end of the calendar year where
| you owe US taxes (that you should be able to fully wipe out
| with tax paid to the UK), but the UK hasn't calculated the
| tax amount yet nor asked for the money yet, so you can't
| show the US that you already paid those taxes under the tax
| treaty. So you end up owing two countries taxes on the same
| money, at least temporarily.
|
| tl;dr - everything sucks, hire an accountant
| ghaff wrote:
| Which is the other reason to pay way too much money to an
| accountant. So you can ask them questions about this sort
| of thing. (Though you get to obscure edge cases and
| accountants may not know all the ins and outs of
| international tax consequences.)
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| checks out. I am a digital nomad. I pay about $300/month to
| bench to take care of it all for me. They handle day by day
| accounting and file at the end of the year for me. 100% worth
| the money.
| ska wrote:
| Depending on the mix of countries, it can be really hard to
| find an accountant who actually knows how to do it properly.
|
| It's also entirely possible that the answer you get is "well,
| this is how we interpret the updated tax treaty, but nobody
| has tried it in court so we aren't sure."
|
| Usually this stuff is in the details rather than the basic
| question, but it can be fiddly.
| ageitgey wrote:
| So true. I have the simplest mix of countries possible (US
| citizen / UK resident) and getting clear answers from an
| accountant on various questions is harder than one might
| expect because cross-border scenarios aren't always clearly
| defined in the law.
|
| A lot of it comes down to the accountant saying "our firm
| recommends X as more defensible based on recent changes in
| legislation, but if you want to do Y, here is why that
| might also be possible."
| deckard1 wrote:
| > do due to real or perceived tax complications?
|
| You can go back to Adam Smith complaining about this in The
| Wealth of Nations. The tax burdens and complexity have only
| increased since then.
|
| The trouble today is that the tax/legal world has not yet moved
| into the 21st century. Try selling something online and
| figuring out taxes. Am I selling a service or a product? Do I
| have an economic nexus in certain states? If I'm an American
| running an online business in America, what are the
| implications of someone in Germany clicking the "buy" button?
| What the hell is a VAT anyway? Etc. etc.
|
| GDPR and privacy/data regulations are another legal quagmire.
| Rapzid wrote:
| I would have expected at least a mention of the foreign earned
| income exclusion from a NY Times article. Anyway, it's
| $108,700[1] for 2021.
|
| Also, maybe they could have thrown a link to the list of
| countries that have tax treaties with the USA? There are quite a
| few[2].
|
| [1] https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-
| taxpayers/fore....
|
| [2] https://www.irs.gov/businesses/international-
| businesses/unit...
|
| Edit: The article does mention the income exclusion. Their fault
| for burying the lede; somebody's getting paid by the word. Can't
| be bothered taking responsibility for not reading the full
| article; I'm _off_ today.
| fortran77 wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > If you qualify for the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion, your
| first $108,700 is exempt from U.S. income tax. But keep in mind
| that this applies only if you're a U.S. citizen who resides in
| a foreign country for more than 330 days within 12 consecutive
| months, not including time on planes, or if you are a bona fide
| resident of a foreign country. (You would still have to pay
| federal and state taxes on unearned income including interest,
| dividends and capital gains.)
| [deleted]
| smnrchrds wrote:
| It does mention it. Perhaps you can't see the full article
| because of the paywall?
|
| "Potentially. If you qualify for the Foreign Earned Income
| Exclusion, your first $108,700 is exempt from U.S. income tax."
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| Yes, this article is rudimentary at best, especially for
| something with serious personal ramifications like taxes where
| doing something incorrectly can have serious consequences.
| Trias11 wrote:
| 1. Buy passport (optionally for the whole family) in zero tax
| jurisdiction, like Antigua and Barduda or St.Kitts. Zero income
| tax, zero capital gains tax, zero nonsense. Total cost for
| citizenship and passports including all fees for family of 4 is
| around $175-180k in Antigua. Add ~$20k for St.Kitts. Vanuatu is
| cheaper than above but it's kinda weird passport. Passports in ~8
| months.
|
| 2. Get rid of US Citizenship or US residency for tax purposes.
| This is no more than IRS trap.
|
| 3. Breathe deeply.
| akudha wrote:
| How powerful are these passports for travel?
| Trias11 wrote:
| Antigua, visa-free travels to 131 countries
|
| St. Kitts - 133 countries.
|
| Google for exact, up to dated list.
| threshold wrote:
| This NYT practice of offering an article as clickbait then
| waiting a few moments after you start reading to block access and
| ask for a subscription is getting really old. Everytime is a slap
| in the face and reenforces my position on never buying news
| articles. If only there was a filter or plugin to blackout links
| that pull that trick.
| naturalauction wrote:
| I mean there are plug-ins that block paywalls. Whether that's
| ethical or not is up to you but you could just install that
| instead.
| jungturk wrote:
| I got so fed up with paywalls that I started paying for the
| content I wanted to read.
| threshold wrote:
| So I have to make 50 accounts for every news service and hand
| out my credit card for yearly subscriptions everytime I want
| to read an article? Do you know what a PITA it is to keep
| track of and cancel those subscriptions? Half the articles
| are clickbait, opinion pieces, or have a strong political
| agenda with painful lack of objectivity. The assumption then
| is I'm going to pay upfront based on a headline? No way not
| in 2021. The news services need to get together and back one
| single payment processor, and accept payment on articles that
| are actually read, and there needs to be a one click option
| at the end of every article to cancel payment to prevent them
| taking advantage. And they are taking advantage and clearly
| have no respect for their readers looking at current tactics.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| This is such an odd article starting with the title. I get that a
| lot of people consider being nomadic because of the tax
| implications but I strongly recommend people who are doing it
| just for tax optimization who are U.S. citizens think twice (if
| your liquid net worth is under a few million) as it is really
| complicated and one mistake can hose your plans. For reference, I
| am an American but worked for the Estonian governments
| e-Residency program where we made it easy for people to set up
| and run a business remotely and most of our users were nomads and
| so I dealt with a ton of tax issues... it is insanely complicated
| and risky.
|
| Just this AM I had a call with a citizenship by investment firm
| (happy to make recommendations in this space as I know a few
| people through previous work) and we were talking about tax
| implications for remote workers and various programs. All I can
| say is, get ready to pay an accountant a lot of money. If you
| want the simplest break as an American, I would leave the U.S. on
| Dec 31 this year and go establish physical residency somewhere
| with no local income tax (or via a program like Barbados Welcome
| Stamp) and stay there long enough to pass the smell test (e.g.
| open a local bank account, have an address for a few months)...
| should be at least 3 months, probably more like 184 days. Then
| you can move on and go other places (not the US) for under 2-3
| months at a time, not creating roots. Of course there will still
| be complications if you're doing this while employed somewhere
| but I guess if you're an independent contractor or with your own
| company you can spin up an overseas entity somewhere.
| aledalgrande wrote:
| Step 1: do not become a US citizen _ph(deg-deg=)
| baybal2 wrote:
| US tax law has become a bit less sticky over time for non-
| residents. At least today they don't throw tax on your global
| income for people doing few months stints.
|
| Though, I don't think you can find much people today willing
| to go to US just for a few months for the sheer amount of
| paperwork headache.
| aledalgrande wrote:
| The thing is you couldn't even work in the US as a non-
| resident even for a week, how do you stay a few months and
| get taxed? Are you talking about income from an overseas
| business while you are on vacation in the US?
| baybal2 wrote:
| Yes, I mean work on visas
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| You can't help where you're born though. Ask "accidental
| American" Boris Johnson for example[0]. Although he's since
| renounced his U.S. citizenship to spare him from U.S. taxes.
|
| 0: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-30932891
| brailsafe wrote:
| I've heard stories like this. I wonder if it's the same in
| Canada. Absurd.
| tharkun__ wrote:
| The CRA does not tax you like the IRS does, no. Generally
| there's that "half year" rule of residency and also the
| "if you are considered a resident for tax purposes on Dec
| 31st" and things might be different for other country
| combinations than I have experienced (where a tax treaty
| existed between Canada and said country).
| aledalgrande wrote:
| It was more of a self note, as I'm not a US citizen.
| celestialcheese wrote:
| Who would you recommend to help with tax and citizenship for
| investment?
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| The premium is Henley & Partners (although they had a bit of
| a scandal recently), I also think Latitude seems very good
| (https://www.latitudeworld.com/), and Arton Capital is
| another leading one but I haven't dealt with them directly
| nodamage wrote:
| I think you're overstating the complexity here, the foreign
| earned income exclusion is available for anyone that meets the
| physical presence test (330+ days abroad) and is easy to
| qualify for if you take an extended trip. Establishing
| residency is unnecessary, you can travel around from country to
| country (hence, nomad).
| [deleted]
| aledalgrande wrote:
| Not affiliated or anything (haven't even tried their service),
| but if you're looking into becoming a nomad and have a high
| enough net worth, this was interesting, lots of free articles
| https://nomadcapitalist.com/
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| I know a couple genuine digital nomads. I try to meet up with
| them if I'm traveling internationally through their part of the
| world.
|
| It's always interesting to meet at their favorite digital nomad
| coworking places, because they're always full of digital nomads
| who are doing anything but working.
|
| To be fair, some of the people I've met do legitimate part-time
| contract work doing things such as managing social media accounts
| for companies or taking design jobs here and there. However, many
| of the people I've been introduced to at these places are trying
| to do some mix of life coaching, affiliate marketing, or creating
| content and services for other aspiring digital nomads.
|
| My experience hiring digital nomads has not been great. Some of
| them have been quite talented, but when their lifestyle revolves
| around minimizing their workload every day it becomes very
| difficult to manage them. I'm sure there digital nomads out there
| who are also diligent teammates and employees, but on average I'd
| take a mediocre in-office hire who can put in predictable effort
| over a digital nomad who is constantly working to minimize their
| workload so they can travel more.
| mettamage wrote:
| Interesting. I have learned that I work best on 3.5/4 days per
| week, even when traveling.
|
| Disclaimer: more used to working from different home locations
| in my home country than being an actual digital nomad.
| zabzonk wrote:
| Don't US citizens have to pay US taxes no matter where the money
| is earned? Gore Vidal was always banging on about this.
| geocar wrote:
| We have to _file_ taxes in the US, and the US has tax treaties
| with many countries that allow the US citizen to simply make up
| the difference in the US. This means if you are in a country
| with a high tax rate, you won 't have to pay anything in the
| US.
| JJMcJ wrote:
| Yes, the USA is one of the few countries that do this.
|
| There are exclusions for foreign income tax paid, but I believe
| there is a cap (US$75,000?) on the amount of tax paid. That is,
| tax paid to another country can reduce your US liability.
|
| Anyone in this situation needs competent advice. That leaves me
| out as a source of that advice.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| There needs to be a tax treaty between the US and the other
| country.
|
| I first moved to the US in May of 1989. At the end of the
| year, when preparing my US tax returns, I had to report my UK
| income and UK taxes. The tax treaty was essentially
| reciprocal, so the final position was that the the US
| government treated the taxes I had paid the UK as part of my
| US taxes. Since the UK taxes at a higher rate, I actually got
| a refund from the US government!
|
| I figured all this out by going to the library and actually
| reading the full text of the tax treaty between the US and
| the UK. It seems that most people wouldn't do this, and would
| pay "an expert" instead.
| amscanne wrote:
| Surely it was only a non-refundable credit. The US
| government is not going to give you back more than you paid
| them in the first place when recognizing foreign tax?
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| The check for about $600 showed up shortly. I was amazed,
| but years later talking to people who actually do this
| stuff for a living, yes, that's how it (can) work.
| zabzonk wrote:
| Isn't this the other way round from my original post - you
| are a UK citizen in the US?
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Yes, it is reversed in that trivial sense. But when
| filing taxes in the US in 1990 for the 1989 tax year, I
| had already become a "US person" for tax purposes, which
| meant that the treaty applied to me as it would to any
| other "US person", citizen or otherwise. The fact that I
| had been a UK citizen working in the UK, and was now a UK
| citizen working in the US did not change that. As a US
| person, I owed US taxes under US laws.
| maeln wrote:
| It is to the point that in some country, like France, bank
| have to ask _anybody_ (even if you are not foreigner) if you
| are a U.S citizen or have close family who are, before
| opening a bank account. As far as I know it is to report the
| creation of the account back to the IRS.
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| In a lot of banks they straight up refuse to open an
| account if you're a "US person". Especially online banks
| that compete on low fees.
| zacharytelschow wrote:
| > Yes, the USA is one of the few countries that do this.
|
| Along with Eritrea and North Korea.
| mtmail wrote:
| > About 10.9 million Americans last year described themselves as
| digital nomads -- people who work remotely and tend to travel
| from place to place
|
| If I read the report right that includes those staying within US
| borders while the NYT article is mostly about those traveling
| abroad https://www.mbopartners.com/state-of-
| independence/2020-digit...
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| Yeah, it definitely seems to imply that these people are all
| abroad but I definitely think most of them are 'nomadic' within
| the US which has very different tax implications for
| individuals.
| mssundaram wrote:
| It seems odd to call someone who works remotely within the US a
| digital nomad. At least I've only ever heard it in the context
| of someone traveling to countries that are more affordable to
| live that lifestyle than the US, such as Vietnam.
| _trampeltier wrote:
| I guess it is still a bit grey area. I guess most people enter
| the country just as 'tourist'. I'm also not sure what will happen
| if you have an accident while working time. What will the
| companys insurance say?
| ghaff wrote:
| Leaving aside workman's comp issues, why would it be any
| different than if you were there on vacation? As a US citizen,
| for most of Europe, I just get a stamp (maybe) when I arrive.
| I'm not even applying for a specific type of visa.
| ska wrote:
| > What will the companys insurance say?
|
| High enough probability of "You don't have coverage for that",
| that this is something you really should dig into personally.
| RandomWorker wrote:
| Keep a travel journal!
|
| I've been doing this for ten years now and you often need to go
| back and figure out where you were, when and why. It's insane. I
| have a physical book, that I periodically scan into my evernote.
| It's awesome, high quality paper and Its stood the test of time.
| Still not completely full.
|
| Arrival data, travel purpose, when you decide to become a
| "resident" of said country, when visa's/passport/PR card were
| renewed. After each trip, count the number of days abroad, and
| attach a note for travel purpose. Keep an index of those at the
| back.
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