Tax doubts: Malaysia as remote worker

[digitalworker22]

Hi, I'm a remote worker from europe and I'm looking to move to southeast asia.

I wanted to apply for DE Rantau visa, malaysia's digital nomad visa but I got one concerning information:
- as a freelancer, you are exempt from taxes and that's good
- as a remote worker, you're obliged to pay income taxes after 60 days of stay with this visa

since I'm already being taxed in europe, this would make no sense and would reduce my income drastically.

Do you know any workaround? I thought I could show up as a freelancer instead, do you recommend me doing that?

 

[fshore]

Where did you read that you are exempt from taxes as a freelancer?
There is a section about tax here:
https://mdec.my/static/pdf/derantau/DE Rantau Pass FAQ-Foreign.pdf
This visa (and Malaysia taxing foreign source income) is still quite new, so it might not be so easy to get a very clear answer.
It appears as they use Source of income in the meaning of where the payer of the income is (Malaysia or foreign).
And there might be a tax treaty you can use (if you stay long enough to become tax resident in Malaysia).

 

[digitalworker22]

Where did you read that you are exempt from taxes as a freelancer?
There is a section about tax here:
https://mdec.my/static/pdf/derantau/DE Rantau Pass FAQ-Foreign.pdf
This visa (and Malaysia taxing foreign source income) is still quite new, so it might not be so easy to get a very clear answer.
It appears as they use Source of income in the meaning of where the payer of the income is (Malaysia or foreign).
And there might be a tax treaty you can use (if you stay long enough to become tax resident in Malaysia).

Okay so probably my pdf was old and they updated rules.
Do you know how that taxation works?

Lets assume my income is 40,000/yr and it gets taxed in europe already, does malaysia tax the same gross amount with their income tax?

 

[Sols]

Lets assume my income is 40,000/yr and it gets taxed in europe already, does malaysia tax the same gross amount with their income tax?

If there is a tax treaty, you can usually apply all taxes paid outside of Malaysia as tax credit in Malaysia. If there is no tax treaty, you can apply half the tax paid as tax credit.

 

[digitalworker22]

If there is a tax treaty, you can usually apply all taxes paid outside of Malaysia as tax credit in Malaysia. If there is no tax treaty, you can apply half the tax paid as tax credit.

Google Bard says my european country has a treaty with Malaysia so I should only pay taxes here, obviously I will inform myself better and not deep trust a bot.
But seems like a good news!