@etc

I’ll be in Rio for 10 days next year during Carvanal. Although I’m flying into Rio, I’d like to spend at least half the time somewhere else as well. I’ve gotten a solid recommendation for Olinda and receptive to other suggestions (or further endorsements of Olinda).

While in Rio, it’s been suggested to avoid Copacabana and possibly find a house in Ipanema to rent. Is this a good suggestion?

What about Olinda?

Any and all recommendations are welcome, solicited and appreciated! Thanks to everyone!

What’s the best place?
For residency I’m looking at Portugal and they have the NHR (non habitual resident) program which would exempt dividends from foreign income.
So all I’m really looking for is the best place to actually start the company.
Biggest factors are of course low taxes and ease of setting up the company plus a business bank account that enables me to receive payments through Stripe.

What I found so far:
Hong Kong
Corporate tax rate of 16.5% (8.25% for the first HK$2 million)
⊕/⊖ offshore income from outside HK is exempt from taxation but it’s not clear whether this can be done in the first year and prorated or if it’s only through filing the offshore exemption claim. This might take two years and requires not income from HK at all. More info on that would be great
⊖ seems very difficult to get a business bank account
⊖ necessary services and fees are roughly around €2000 / year
⊖ accounting requirements seem to be very strict
⊕ Doesn’t require local partner
⊕ Agencies available that seem to handle most of the work

Singapore
Corporate tax rate of 17% (0% on the first S$100k, 8.5% up to S$300k)
⊖ requires a local director. What are the implications of this?

Malta
Corporate tax rate of 35%
There is the “full imputation system” but I don’t really understand it.
"In most cases, the tax refund to the shareholder is 6/7 of the tax paid by the company on profits distributed as dividends. The tax refund rate may be different in the following cases: " This would result in an effective corporate tax of around 5%.
⊖ European customers would have to pay VAT and I’d have to deal with that

Cyprus
Corporate tax rate of 12.5% and there seem to be ways to lower this
⊖ European customers would have to pay VAT and I’d have to deal with that
⊖ requires staying in Cyprus for 2 months / year

I find it surprising how much research this requires and how much “it depends” information is out there when I’d assume that there are probably thousands of digital nomads who probably have very similar requirements.

We launch in 2 weeks. In the US, we use Apple TV and Netflix regularly. Do these work abroad?

Hi Norway folks—I’m planning a February trip to Tromsø hoping to see the northern lights, but honestly I can’t find anything about how likely I am to see them. Are they out every night and it’s just a matter of cloud cover, or are they like once a week?

Any info would help me decide whether to pull the trigger.

Just tackling my legal will and bought a little $35 pack at my local Australian post office while I’m back in my birth country, but upon reading the first few pages it’s fairly apparent this is only an Australian Legal Will.

Has anyone tackled checking out their will situation on an international level?

I need to consider things like decentralised online assets that don’t exist in any particular country, any resources or experiences even just anecdotally appreciated

Cheers

TMobile advises their international plan requires me to reside in the US for 3 months of each year, however I may be there only 1 month (or less). Anyone using their plan continuously? Rigid requirement?

I often spend upwards of $150 per month in coffee shops, where I do much of my (remote) work (25+ hours per week). Since I don’t pay office rent, I perceive these expenses as replacing my fixed rent costs, and I tend to spend more money at coffee shops when I’m camping out for a 2- to 4-hour work session, so these expenses strike me as legitimate business expenses. Has anybody gone down this road with the IRS? Is anybody aware of any official guidance or precedence for this?