Moving from Guatemala to Spain with Beckham Law

[latinomad]

Hello everyone! My wife and I have decided to move temporarily to Europe and I have a question on how to best set up our business.

• Background:
  • We are a couple from Guatemala. I have my Guatemalan passport (birth), and German and Spanish passports by ancestry. Wife only has a Guatemalan passport (looking to change this).
  • Wife has a digital marketing agency. I have a software development agency (wanting to expand into e-commerce, digital products, and SAAS solutions in 2-3 years).
  • Both companies are located and operating in Guatemala. We rent offices, 30+ employees and almost all clients are Guatemalan, with a few US customers.
  • We earn our salaries and dividends from our companies. I also receive income/interest from real estate and investments.
    
• Objectives:
  • For personal reasons, we decided to move to Europe and travel around as digital nomads. Currently, this is not planned as a permanent move (maybe 3-5 years), even though this might change as we go along.
  • We would like to use that time to also expand our businesses and find European customers while we travel.
    
• Our plan: we decided to move to Spain for the following reasons (definitively not tax reasons)
  
  • We really like the country, have friends there, good weather, relatively cheap, and speak Spanish
  • Most importantly, my wife would be eligible for a Spanish passport after only 1 year of us living there. We definitively would like to get her a stronger passport, but not interested in golden visas or 5-10 year residencies.
  • We both qualify for Beckham Law, which will allow us to live there as non-residents for 6 years paying taxes only for Spanish income. After my wife gets her passport (or after the 6 years are up if we decide to stay in Spain) we would move, either to travel around Europe, to a more favorable country (Portugal?), or back to Guatemala.

My questions are mostly related to how to best create a structure to operate and expand our businesses in Europe. Obviously, most customers will come from Spain, but not exclusively. We don't plan on having offices/employees.

• Wouldn't want to unnecessarily start a Spanish company, as I would like to cut all ties once I leave Spain. Could I set up an offshore company outside of Spain to sell to customers in Spain and Europe? Being a non-resident in Spain, how might Hacienda treat this offshore company?
• Which would be good jurisdictions to incorporate the offshore company? (considering that in the future we would take up residency in another country like Portugal or move back to Guatemala)?
• I was looking into setting up a Delaware LLC, but I think it wouldn't work as I understand that all sales will be viewed as personal income related to my work and thus taxable in Spain, correct?

Just starting out my research, but I've found better answers here than from most lawyers I've talked to, as they are mostly experts in only Spanish or Guatemalan laws.
Thank you very much for your help!

 

[Martin Everson]

we decided to move to Spain

Ok....

Could I set up an offshore company outside of Spain to sell to customers in Spain and Europe?

Yes if you have given up the will to live an easy life.


P.S You need professional tax advice and should seek it early on when it comes to Spain.

 

[jafo]

My questions are mostly related to how to best create a structure to operate and expand our businesses in Europe. Obviously, most customers will come from Spain, but not exclusively. We don't plan on having offices/employees.

• If you are servicing customers in Spain while you are a resident of Spain, just pay the high taxes in Spain (maybe freelancer type; not sure you need a company). I know people in Spain doing the exact same thing. They live peacefully in Marbella. They live within their earnings in Spain. No remittance from overseas to Spain.
• As far as other customers located OUTSIDE Spain are concerned, someone much smarter here will chime in to give you better advice.
• Survive/live in Spain with the funds you earn in Spain from clients in Spain. Do NOT remit anything to Spain from overseas, notwithstanding if the biggest accounting firm and law firm (hereinafter BA&LF) tells you to. The more problems you have, the more money BA&LF will earn and the more money Hacienda will also earn. Think of inked rules, i.e. laws, on paper hedging the attacks of Bull Sharks. Do you think Bull Sharks will care if you fall into their body of water while bleeding? Hacienda is orders of magnitude worse than the most aggressive Bull Shark. This is lost on MOST people until it's too late i.e., when they find themselves in the proverbial "body water and bleeding surrounded by Bull Sharks."

Also, as @Martin Everson wrote: You need professional tax advice and should seek it early on when it comes to Spain BEFORE you arrive in Spain.

***Make a list of accountants/lawyers who have successfully done it in the past (you MUST confirm this; be a detective) {p} and their Beckham Law clients didn't end up on Hacienda's "hitlist" {q}

***and = conjunction *and* in a Truth Table, so
{p} and {q} = p∧q
T and T = T

Good luck & safe travels.