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American/EU Day-trader moving to Spain with wife - Tax optimisation?

BobaKH202

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Jan 9, 2021
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Hello all and happy new year!

I am an American/EU citizen currently working in Belgium for a Belgian company. My wife is also an EU citizen working for a (different) Belgian company. We are both making a comfortable 2000 or so net income each month.

We plan to move to Spain this year (work-life balance yada yada), but we both want to continue working for our current companies, while also possibly getting more in income by having our employers avoid paying all of the high Belgian employment taxes.

We thought it would be an idea to set up an offshore company and then we could invoice our current Belgian companies each month from this offshore company (or two separate companies, if necessary), and then pay ourselves in Spain the bare minimum to survive (around 1000-1500 a month each)) and the rest could sit in this offshore company's bank account for us to be able to access in a couple of years, when necessary, if we plan to buy property or something.

Although of course this would mean we would have less job security if we would ever get laid off, we would prefer to have higher income so that we can decide what to do with our money, rather than most of our brute income being lost to other payroll taxes etc. As we are quite thrifty savers, we would very likely be saving and directly investing all of the money in this foreign company/account.

Is there anyone that would be able to provide advise on if this is a reasonable system and if there are any services that we could look into to help us fulfill this? We certainly want to be tax compliant and understand there is an added level of complexity given that I am an American citizen, although at this stage making far less than 100,000 USD a year.

Lastly, I am a day-trader by hobby (purely US equities) and intend to make this a full-time activity in a year or so, if possible, to eventually replace my current job and therefore whichever approach we take would need to account for me being taxed on capital gains and also paying myself an income through day-trading profits.

Any help or pointer in the right direction would be much appreciated (even of course, if we need to pay for some service).

Best regards

Brian
 
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Be aware if Spanish taxman finds out you owe an offshore company, they can force you to move your offshore company to Spain unless you can demonstrate that the company is managed and operated elsewhere.
So the key is: where is the offshore company and if they have tax treaties with spanish taxman. I.e. a company in Estonia is far too transparent. If you choose Estonian company, I would advice to keep a low profile (less than 50k turnover) and it might be okay.
 
A lot of people aim to buy property as a financial goal these days and I do not understand.

1. Property should be located in a politically stable/low risk country
2. If property is in EU or US, taxman knows. So they have more clues about your actual wealth.
3. Taxman is desperate to collect tax. Even more with current quantitative easing.

Car ownership and property ownership is first hand information accessible to taxman. And so that wealth cannot be hidden.

To my knowledge, Bank accounts in offshore jurisdictions are the key to legally or illegally pay less taxes. Property ownership is like having a car number plate that is constantly being monitored by road cams. They know how much you own and they can target that.
 
selfishly and shamelessly bumping my thread up. Any point in the right direction would be much appreciated!
Hi
did you get any valuable feedback or other insights ?
I (EU) would like to move to Spain too with my wife (US) and live there from the fruits of my trading...
but am stuck on how to go about it.. as freelancer, creating a company, estimated tax rates etc.

So if you found out more , would be happy if you could share
thx
Thomas
 
Hi
did you get any valuable feedback or other insights ?
I (EU) would like to move to Spain too with my wife (US) and live there from the fruits of my trading...
but am stuck on how to go about it.. as freelancer, creating a company, estimated tax rates etc.

So if you found out more , would be happy if you could share
thx
Thomas
I also would love to live in spain full time. Who would not.
I even tried to invest in spain and run a small business there.

I gave up along the way and buried these dreams. Taxes, bureaucracy, professionalism of staff etc. was all but worth the squeeze.
 
Hi
did you get any valuable feedback or other insights ?
I (EU) would like to move to Spain too with my wife (US) and live there from the fruits of my trading...
but am stuck on how to go about it.. as freelancer, creating a company, estimated tax rates etc.

So if you found out more , would be happy if you could share
thx
Thomas
I'm planning to do the same but as an EU citizen. I know that Spain brought in a Financial Transaction tax starting in January of this year which isn't going to help traders. My guess is that if you are a prop trader (Topstep or the like) you'll pay income tax at the progressive rates. I plan to trade S&P futures and I have no idea whether it would be better to trade my own account (capital gains tax?), trade the prop, or set up my own offshore company (where??) and pay myself an income (would it be double taxed?). I know there are better places to live for tax purposes but I want to have the lifestyle provided by a place like Malaga or Valencia.
 

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