How to turn cryptocurrency into legal monthly income?

[Mark Yvon]

I want legal monthly income to apply visas. Portugal D7 visa requires €665/month, Malta digital nomad visa requires €2,700/month. My target is €5,000/month.
I want this income from salary, dividend or other legal formats with lowest tax instead of cryptocurrency to avoid influencing my visas.

Create companies
I have seen a solution in this forum:
1. Create two companies, one is crypto relevant, the other is consulting.
2. Cash crypto to the crypto company
3. The crypto company hires the consulting compan
4. The consulting company pay me.
But I have no experience with opening companies and it will be expensive to open two companies and hire accountants just for €5,000/month income.
Use other's company
Can I pay a company to hire me? I want to use my relative's company with real business if this won't create troubles for him.

Tax consideration: I am a Chinese, I need to pay about 30% tax with €5,000/month salary and 20% tax if with dividend. Must I be a shareholder to receive dividend? This will make more troubles if I pay by other's company.

 

[avalanche]

I want legal monthly income to apply visas. Portugal D7 visa requires €665/month, Malta digital nomad visa requires €2,700/month. My target is €5,000/month.
I want this income from salary, dividend or other legal formats with lowest tax instead of cryptocurrency to avoid influencing my visas.

Create companies
I have seen a solution in this forum:
1. Create two companies, one is crypto relevant, the other is consulting.
2. Cash crypto to the crypto company
3. The crypto company hires the consulting compan
4. The consulting company pay me.
But I have no experience with opening companies and it will be expensive to open two companies and hire accountants just for €5,000/month income.
Use other's company
Can I pay a company to hire me? I want to use my relative's company with real business if this won't create troubles for him.

Tax consideration: I am a Chinese, I need to pay about 30% tax with €5,000/month salary and 20% tax if with dividend. Must I be a shareholder to receive dividend? This will make more troubles if I pay by other's company.

careful because it may be classified as money laundering if you misrepresent your source of income

 

[Sols]

Create companies
I have seen a solution in this forum:
1. Create two companies, one is crypto relevant, the other is consulting.
2. Cash crypto to the crypto company
3. The crypto company hires the consulting compan
4. The consulting company pay me.

This is probably fine, provided no one actually looks too closely at the companies. For the purposes of creating a cash flow, there is nothing inherently, immediately wrong with this. Corporate tax residence may be an issue but neither Portugal nor Malta are working particularly hard on that, especially not for the relatively low amount here. 60,000 EUR/year probably won't be a priority for them, so long as you don't draw any other attention to yourself.

But I have no experience with opening companies and it will be expensive to open two companies and hire accountants just for €5,000/month income.

Budget a few thousand EUR/year per company.

Use other's company
Can I pay a company to hire me? I want to use my relative's company with real business if this won't create troubles for him.

You don't normally pay a company to hire you. But if your relative has a company and can legally hire you, there is nothing stopping you from giving them a very nice birthday gift for example. Don't pay the company directly. Show your gratitude to your relative through a separate transaction.

Must I be a shareholder to receive dividend?

Generally speaking, yes.

careful because it may be classified as money laundering if you misrepresent your source of income

Yes, this is a risk worth considering. It probably wouldn't be money laundering in a way that would hold up in a court of law, but it might look suspicious to the banks.

 

[Mike Forman]

I want legal monthly income to apply visas. Portugal D7 visa requires €665/month, Malta digital nomad visa requires €2,700/month. My target is €5,000/month.
I want this income from salary, dividend or other legal formats with lowest tax instead of cryptocurrency to avoid influencing my visas.

Create companies
I have seen a solution in this forum:
1. Create two companies, one is crypto relevant, the other is consulting.
2. Cash crypto to the crypto company
3. The crypto company hires the consulting compan
4. The consulting company pay me.
But I have no experience with opening companies and it will be expensive to open two companies and hire accountants just for €5,000/month income.
Use other's company
Can I pay a company to hire me? I want to use my relative's company with real business if this won't create troubles for him.

Tax consideration: I am a Chinese, I need to pay about 30% tax with €5,000/month salary and 20% tax if with dividend. Must I be a shareholder to receive dividend? This will make more troubles if I pay by other's company.

Dividends come after corporate tax, so your taxation will still be high.

Best is to declare just the income you need for any of your visa requirements if you want to reduce tax in China, the rest there are many ways to get it in cash.

You can just set up a Chinese company and provide your services to a Hong Kong corporation (you can use someone you know as nominee) for which your Chinese company receives service fees. It's then up to you what part you pay as salary and which as dividend.

Countries will want to see your tax certificates, so just bank transfers and declare them as salary won't count. Also dividend income doesn't alwasy count as an income since it's easy to play with that and pay this year a high dividend and the next years nothing

 

[Mark Yvon]

Will zero tax countries give me tax certificates? Do developed countries recognize these certificates?

Zero tax countries:
- No foreign income tax such as Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia
- No income tax such as Caribbean countries

I plan to become tax resident of these countries if this can work.

 

[Sols]

Will zero tax countries give me tax certificates?

If you qualify, yes, most of them will.

Do developed countries recognize these certificates?

A tax certificate isn't the be-all and end-all. It's just one document of many documents you may need to present as proof that you are tax resident somewhere else.

Depending on who's asking and how suspicious they are of you, you may need to provide proof of continuous stay in that country, for example utility bills, bank statements showing local purchases, flight tickets, immigration report to see when you have left and entered the country, and so on.