Question Source of funds for a fiscal resident of Spain

[sriracha]

I intend to move to Spain and buy an apartment. I am thinking to sell stock for the amount of money necessary to buy the apartment.

I am wondering what is the right way to do that. because of

- capital gains tax - maybe I should sell my stock while I am in a country where I would pay less capital gains tax and then move to Spain? I am currently a fiscal resident of Estonia, where I have an Estonian LLC, but I could stay in an "intermediate" country in that case

- source of funds - will I have to prove the source of funds, or the very fact that I sold stock would be considered a source of funds?

I bought the stocks twenty years ago with money I received from a client, but unfortunately the paper trail that proves it is all lost and I have no way to recover it.

 

[mrsv]

Portugal, Andorra good stuff I think, I'll check my options.

Yes, you can easy go to spend a good time in Spain anytime you want and protect your money from their government.

 

[Radko]

Portugal, Andorra good stuff I think, I'll check my options.

Andorra, South of Italy,
Portugal, Cyprus, Costa Rica, Panama, Uruguay, Thailand, etc, etc.
But if you want to stay in Europe then Portugal, Cyprus or South of Italy, definitely not Spain (there are two way of having more money, one is by making it, another one is by saving it, Spain will kill you with its taxes and expensive cost of living, especially rents have gone through the roof.)

 

[sriracha]

Andorra, South of Italy,
Portugal, Cyprus, Costa Rica, Panama, Uruguay, Thailand, etc, etc.
But if you want to stay in Europe then Portugal, Cyprus or South of Italy, definitely not Spain (there are two way of having more money, one is by making it, another one is by saving it, Spain will kill you with its taxes and expensive cost of living, especially rents have gone through the roof.)

South of Italy? Not the same as north?

 

[Radko]

South of Italy? Not the same as north?

Nope, Italy has a special program if you go to live in the south of Italy, in a municipality of 20k people or less, 7% flat tax rate, there's plenty of information about it online (basically anywhere south of Napoli.)

Portugal under the NHR is also extremely attractive and life in Portugal is way less expensive than in Spain, but you'll be next to Spain...

 

[JohnnyDoe]

South of Italy? Not the same as north?

Southern Italy is warmer. The 100k € flat tax is the same everywhere.
If you go south of Napoli you are basically in Africa
Sicily and Sardinia too are part of Italy.

 

[Radko]

Southern Italy is warmer. The 100k € flat tax is the same everywhere.
If you go south of Napoli you are basically in Africa
Sicily and Sardinia too are part of Italy.

Close to Africa but not so hot, winters are not that warm unless you're coming from a Scandinavian county.
Now that I remember both Italy and Spain have digital nomad programs, he can find the details online.

 

[JohnnyDoe]

Close to Africa but not so hot,

check the latitude of Lampedusa and southern Sicily

winters are not that warm unless you're coming from a Scandinavian county.

It depends on the location. Winters on the Tirrenic coast (Tuscany and south) are mild.

 

[Radko]

check the latitude of Lampedusa and southern Sicily

It depends on the location. Winters on the Tirrenic coast (Tuscany and south) are mild.

He can buy a property in Sicily for $1 as the Town Hall has a special program to attract people there, but he'll need to spend a bit of money making it livable.
I would go straight for Portugal under the NHR where he can eat cheap avocados for 10 years nonstop

 

[JohnnyDoe]

He can buy a property in Sicily for $1 as the Town Hall has a special program to attract people there, but he'll need to spend a bit of money making it livable.

Those properties are in rustic villages and need complete renovation.
You can find wonderful properties in Sicily, for example: Palazzo - Edificio in Vendita | 5+ locali | 4000 m²

I would go straight for Portugal under the NHR where he can eat cheap avocados for 10 years nonstop

He can cultivate his own avocados in Sicily, or buy online from Il cuore verde dell'isola

 

[RealDude]

You can find wonderful properties in Sicily, for example: Palazzo - Edificio in Vendita | 5+ locali | 4000 m²

Cosa Nostra tax is included?

 

[sriracha]

Cosa Nostra tax is included?

I suppose it's not levied, they'll just ask you a favour or two, that you cannot refuse...

 

[Radko]

I suppose it's not levied, they'll just ask you a favour or two, that you cannot refuse...

Better to pay the Cosa Nostra Tax, I believe it comes with Perks!

 

[JimBeam]

Those properties are in rustic villages and need complete renovation.
You can find wonderful properties in Sicily, for example: Palazzo - Edificio in Vendita | 5+ locali | 4000 m²

You could write off some of the costs of work off the tax.
I think it includes works on the building facade and couple other things.

One of the biggest issues in Italy is safety:

UK vote to scrap non-dom status unsuccessful and millionaires flee UK anyway

FYI UK just held a house of commons vote yesterday to get rid of non-dom status. https://votes.parliament.uk/Votes/Commons/Division/1475 The results went pretty much along party lines with conservatives against and Labour for scrapping it. So the status remains. However chances are Labour will...

www.offshorecorptalk.com

 

[karishi]

As everyone else noted Spain is a suicide run if you are planning on running a business. Stay away from italy too, they will f**k you hard as soon as they understand that you have money.
I don't know what country are you from and if you have a family, but the best option in my opinion is doing a mix of Dubai, Spain, Greece. It depends on the kind of lifestyle you want to have, but with 90 days in Dubai and a property or a company you get a tax certificate which cleans your money with 0 taxes. After that, you simply need not to trigger residency anywhere else, you can have 3-4 months ( depending on your passport ) in Spain in the summer ( Ibiza is really good and different from the party image ) and French Caribbean in the Winter ( I particularly like Guadeloupe which is safe, and St. Barths is close if you want to party/throw money away ).
If you want to settle somewhere, unless all your money is already made and you have proof that you paid taxes on that money, Middle Eastern cities like Dubai or Abu Dhabi are the best bet. Dubai is much better than it seems for living.
As usual there is not one size fits all solution, but please never ever ever think of going to Spain or Italy, buy a nice expensive house, and not be fucked by the Hacienda/Agenzia delle entrate. In any case Spain >>> Italy, as of now.

 

[JohnnyDoe]

As everyone else noted Spain is a suicide run if you are planning on running a business. Stay away from italy too, they will f**k you hard as soon as they understand that you have money.
I don't know what country are you from and if you have a family, but the best option in my opinion is doing a mix of Dubai, Spain, Greece. It depends on the kind of lifestyle you want to have, but with 90 days in Dubai and a property or a company you get a tax certificate which cleans your money with 0 taxes. After that, you simply need not to trigger residency anywhere else, you can have 3-4 months ( depending on your passport ) in Spain in the summer ( Ibiza is really good and different from the party image ) and French Caribbean in the Winter ( I particularly like Guadeloupe which is safe, and St. Barths is close if you want to party/throw money away ).
If you want to settle somewhere, unless all your money is already made and you have proof that you paid taxes on that money, Middle Eastern cities like Dubai or Abu Dhabi are the best bet. Dubai is much better than it seems for living.
As usual there is not one size fits all solution, but please never ever ever think of going to Spain or Italy, buy a nice expensive house, and not be fucked by the Hacienda/Agenzia delle entrate. In any case Spain >>> Italy, as of now.

Spain doesn’t offer a flat tax, therefore Spain < Italy

 

[karishi]

Spain doesn’t offer a flat tax, therefore Spain < Italy

yeah I was speaking about Quality of life and how things work in general, not about flat tax. BTW not sure for how long you can claim the tax benefit.

Fair enough

It depends on the location and on your budget

Low cost of life depends where. Caribbean countries are not all the same (let’s include the non-Caribbean T&C, BS and BM)

In Haiti, true. In some other places you would be surprised of how efficient they are (and the Chinese are coming)

Same in Europe.

Buy a water filter.

Come on, that’s Haiti, not “The Caribbean”

Usually it’s a US tourist driving on the right. If we want to call the various “King’s highways” proper highways.

Like everywhere.

Portugal is better, but Europe is doomed.

Still laughing about this one

 

[JohnnyDoe]

yeah I was speaking about Quality of life and how things work in general, not about flat tax.

Quality of life in Italy is far superior to Spain. Things in general work in a similar way.

BTW not sure for how long you can claim the tax benefit.

15 years

 

[sriracha]

As everyone else noted Spain is a suicide run if you are planning on running a business. Stay away from italy too, they will f**k you hard as soon as they understand that you have money.
I don't know what country are you from and if you have a family, but the best option in my opinion is doing a mix of Dubai, Spain, Greece. It depends on the kind of lifestyle you want to have, but with 90 days in Dubai and a property or a company you get a tax certificate which cleans your money with 0 taxes. After that, you simply need not to trigger residency anywhere else, you can have 3-4 months ( depending on your passport ) in Spain in the summer ( Ibiza is really good and different from the party image ) and French Caribbean in the Winter ( I particularly like Guadeloupe which is safe, and St. Barths is close if you want to party/throw money away ).
If you want to settle somewhere, unless all your money is already made and you have proof that you paid taxes on that money, Middle Eastern cities like Dubai or Abu Dhabi are the best bet. Dubai is much better than it seems for living.
As usual there is not one size fits all solution, but please never ever ever think of going to Spain or Italy, buy a nice expensive house, and not be fucked by the Hacienda/Agenzia delle entrate. In any case Spain >>> Italy, as of now.

Wow...suicide run...I did not know it was so bad...

So the exact situation is: I am from the Netherlands, but I am a fiscal resident of Estonia for many years now. I have money saved up, half in stock, half in precious metals, for which I have proof of source (it's from work and I have the invoices) but only for some of it I have proof of taxes paid (I lost the documentation for maybe 25% of it). It's not big money, it's enough to buy an apartment.

At this point of my life I want to settle down and create a startup, and I do need to be in a real country for that - network of people, conferences, events, investors, I don't really see myself taking a plane a week to go back and forth for five years. It could be Spain or Portugal, I tried other countries and I hated them.

So the idea is that being the money already saved up I would go to Spain, buy an apartment with that money, or just keep it where it is, declare it to Spain, and create a startup. Spain leaves the saved up money alone, no matter what happens with the startup, so I always have a landing pad in case of trouble.

I could also do the intermediate step in Dubai, but maybe that only applies for money that is 100% unjustified or non-eu people?

So again the basic idea is that Spain/Portugal leaves my existing money alone, with which I will eventually buy an apartment. If the startup works well I will then try to do tax optimization, move to Monaco or that kind of stuff.

 

[Radko]

Wow...suicide run...I did not know it was so bad...

So the exact situation is: I am from the Netherlands, but I am a fiscal resident of Estonia for many years now. I have money saved up, half in stock, half in precious metals, for which I have proof of source (it's from work and I have the invoices) but only for some of it I have proof of taxes paid (I lost the documentation for maybe 25% of it). It's not big money, it's enough to buy an apartment.

At this point of my life I want to settle down and create a startup, and I do need to be in a real country for that - network of people, conferences, events, investors, I don't really see myself taking a plane a week to go back and forth for five years. It could be Spain or Portugal, I tried other countries and I hated them.

So the idea is that being the money already saved up I would go to Spain, buy an apartment with that money, or just keep it where it is, declare it to Spain, and create a startup. Spain leaves the saved up money alone, no matter what happens with the startup, so I always have a landing pad in case of trouble.

I could also do the intermediate step in Dubai, but maybe that only applies for money that is 100% unjustified or non-eu people?

So again the basic idea is that Spain/Portugal leaves my existing money alone, with which I will eventually buy an apartment. If the startup works well I will then try to do tax optimization, move to Monaco or that kind of stuff.

Well if you think you'll be buying an apartment sooner or later then go to Portugal, you can get a lot more for your money, at the moment real estate in Spain is once again through the roof, the Covid bubble continues as there isn't that much inventory, not nearly as much as back in 2008, so definitely Portugal under the NHR would be better and cheaper imo.

 

[karishi]

Quality of life in Italy is far superior to Spain. Things in general work in a similar way.

I totally disagree, I live in both, both top ends ( Ibiza / Barcellona / Milano ) and Spain is much better. Things just work better, quality of life is better, and it's cheaper.
as usual, it's personal taste

Wow...suicide run...I did not know it was so bad...

So the exact situation is: I am from the Netherlands, but I am a fiscal resident of Estonia for many years now. I have money saved up, half in stock, half in precious metals, for which I have proof of source (it's from work and I have the invoices) but only for some of it I have proof of taxes paid (I lost the documentation for maybe 25% of it). It's not big money, it's enough to buy an apartment.

At this point of my life I want to settle down and create a startup, and I do need to be in a real country for that - network of people, conferences, events, investors, I don't really see myself taking a plane a week to go back and forth for five years. It could be Spain or Portugal, I tried other countries and I hated them.

So the idea is that being the money already saved up I would go to Spain, buy an apartment with that money, or just keep it where it is, declare it to Spain, and create a startup. Spain leaves the saved up money alone, no matter what happens with the startup, so I always have a landing pad in case of trouble.

I could also do the intermediate step in Dubai, but maybe that only applies for money that is 100% unjustified or non-eu people?

So again the basic idea is that Spain/Portugal leaves my existing money alone, with which I will eventually buy an apartment. If the startup works well I will then try to do tax optimization, move to Monaco or that kind of stuff.

If the startup works well moving it it's going to be a nightmare, trust me, although everything can be done, all the major Italian holdings have been moved to....the Netherlands. I read they are doing a startup incubator in Ibiza...in any case my advice is Portugal in this case. Lisbona is a fantastic city and it's for startuppers, big events, on the cheap side but fantastic to live in and have fun. Otherwise you would have to go to Barcelona which is a lot more expensive.
At the end of the day, given your situation I think you can skip the step about UAE, just but the house in Portugal ( or Spain ), you have reasonable proof of funds, take residency, it should be ok. at the end of the day if we are not talking about millions of euro, you have no ties with spain or portugal, you plan to live there and start a business, they would be foolish to bug you at the beginning try to get info from someone with experience, from what I know gestorias in spain are forced to report you to the Hacienda if they think that your are doing something strange money wise, so maybe pick someone from your country which has done a similar move. In general I'm sure things will be smoother in Portugal.
Anyway good luck!