For someone genuinely interested and looking to learn about more examples, Market Wizards book series by Jack D. Schwager and Chat With Traders podcast are pretty awesome. Just people sharing their stories.

> You invest in gold because gold has value. Gold is limited. Gold is you thinking, my currency is gonna inflate so much next year, I'd rather have gold, because gold has more value.
yeah, I get your analogy. fwiw, I don't invest in gold (or other precious metals) either 🙈

But then what's the fun without any of the wallstreetbets degeneracy?

Real estate is a great game. I've been investing in Hamilton, ON, Canada since 2011, but recently started expanding my portfolio to the Caribbean.

I've also looked seriously at Portugal, Malaysia, and Costa Rica.

Hi everyone, I’m building a smart trading journal that supports several brokers. If you are an active trader, and want to improve your game, the following might be for you:

I’m offering a free 1-year usage during my prelaunch to gather feedback on existing and upcoming features. If anyone is interested, please contact me or ask here. The service is called tradepapyrus .com.
Cheers !

hi there! does anyone have experience selling their services? i'm selling b2c but now companies want to get my service under a white label. i think i'm in the habit of underpricing myself. talking to someone who has experience selling their services to business wouldn't hurt 😮

What skills are you selling, and in which field?

Hi, I got my phone stolen on Friday in Antwerp, Belgium and my credit cards went with it. Does anyone have an idea about how long do Western Union cash-pickup transfers take? Or do you have other suggestions for getting cash received from abroad? I may be able to sort things out with my bank tomorrow, but I'm considering this as a last resort.

Hi, my Credit Card was once blocked when i was in colombia. I just used online Banking and the WU app. Could get Cash right away

Western union transfers work instantly. I’m having a similar problem and i haven’t found another way to get cash :/

I'm a consultant for 12+ years, happy to help

ejrsbvtd Depending on what services you are selling there is not much difference in providing the services. Localization can be tricky with VAT on your invoices. You should def consult your accountant as he knows your business situation 🙂

Hey! Looking for a global tax/ stripe expert who can help pls? In short, my business is registered in Estonia, my clients are mostly individuals paying for an online coaching service/ programme. They are across the world in 40+ countries and all US & Canadian states. Stripe is saying I need to register in every country I'm doing business, but surely this isn't right? Please help! My accountant service with Companio is useless to help with this!

I know that Paddle payment system cover taxes

Revolut now has a shared joint account option too, that’s what i’ve been using with my partner - works great

I just talked with a friend who sells with Stripe internationally. he is definitely not registered in every country he sells products to people in. Where is this direction coming from with Stripe? He said:

> if it's coming from stripe support i wouldn't necessarily trust it, i've had several awful experiences with them
> they're not accountants or lawyers

Thanks so much. So i have an issue where all payments, despite having automatic tax checked off and them entering their address, the payment defers to estonian tax rate (20%). Stripe say i need to register in the countries, my accountant is no help and im frustrated as hell!

I have no idea about how that applies to Estonia. Also, 20% tax, yikes

Do I understand it correctly that you're selling to consumers and not businesses? If selling to consumers, you do typically need to charge tax based on their location depending on what kind of product/service, how it's delivered etc., and you do need to forward that tax to the respective government. You don't charge Estonian VAT to US consumers, for example. For you to forward that tax, you do need some kind of registration with that government for reporting. It's not a complete incorporation in those countries, but rather a foreign entity tax registration. For example, MOSS covers all EU countries. Not sure what needs to be done with the US and other governments, but what Stripe says makes complete sense to me in this context.

B2B online services are much easier - you don't charge Estonian VAT or sales tax of any kind to your non-Estonian customers. There're some exceptions like Estonian B2B customer or EU B2B customer that isn't VAT-registered.

Thanks. Western Union did indeed work instantly and really saved me.

thanks all for your help! any suggestions on a good alternative to stripe thats imntegrated with circle too. preferably?

maybe you need to check circle integrations?

so circle have told me to spk to stripe, stripe have told me to spk to my accountant and guess what my accountant has told me to do??

What do you expect from the alternative? Allow you to charge consumers without collecting and forwarding appropriate taxes? I'm checking PayPal - they are going to request the same thing (at least for the US). It looks like US sales tax reporting thresholds for payment processors changed from $20k of gross sales down to $600 in 2023, explains why they are stricter about it for US sales.

i have friends in stripe and they told me to check taxjar product that was acquired by stripe

No qzitlrmn - I'm not looking to avoid tax at all! Stripe is automatically adding a 20% tax rate on based on estonia, even if the client pays from a US (OR OTHER CONTRY) card. This is not right, but i cant seem to change this. Thanks uvqvtgxfecxvvsb -

iujtgvktesqnpfcun if you can't find solutions, let me know

I can ask my friends, they are engineers, but at least they can point out some direction

No, UK company will have to charge US sales tax, EU VAT and other local taxes just like Estonian company. Your business location makes no difference for digital B2C transactions.

xmohvzyg you are right

but seems if I am selling b2b, I don't need to pay VAT

That depends on the nature of the product, how it's delivered etc. But generally yes, B2B is often simpler. See my first message in this thread.

thank you U03M0VB0FT3. i may take you up on your offer as im getting nowhere with this stripe circus! qkexfysw - you propose i set up tax in over 100 countries/states??

Well, yes, if you're looking to sell to consumers in over 100 countries directly

thanks a lot

For anyone who uses AMEX and gets rejected in Europe I just discovered that if you load it into your iPhone wallet and use your phone to charge it works

the market is a retesting machine. learn pivot points if you haven't already.

Maybe doesn’t work 100%. Just tried in a Vodafone and got rejected. Their POS prob more sophisticated and picked it up 🤷

nope, that won’t help

I’ve been doing it and my success rate is higher. So it helps me. From a technical standpoint maybe does nothing but bypasses cashier saying “no” which is the bigger issue since I think fewer POS disable AMEX

Hey fam, I used to be a resident in Germany and was using Wise to do online transfers..now my tax residency changed to India and wise does not allow me to transfer online transfer .. my bank does not have transparent transfer rates(commerzbank).. if i want to transfer money from Germany to India(personal - personal) and i am not a resident in Germany, is there any service that could be used?

Hey, if you still have German ID you should be able to open an account with Revolut or N26. If not, then try TransferGo or Remitly that are specializing in online transfers.

Furthermore, remember that if you keep running an LTD in the UK, or within the EU e.g. in Estonia, then you'll be able to keep a business account with Wise (or Revolut).

How does Revolt even know that you are not longer a resident? 🤔 I've been using my DKB account with my parents address for 10 years. In UK I just use my last address everywhere (with mail forwarding to a scanning service)

I checked in revolut sub reddit and there are theories like revolut using the phone location buying pattern etc .. I have seen some other German citizen in reddit saying that their account was frozen after a few months as he moved to Vietnam.. the account frozen things are mainly about crypto traders but I also see that others like me have got their account suspended

I think Revolut have been tightening things up in compliance, in anticipation of applying for a banking licence, to avoid yet more ire from regulators

Yes okhipnit I run an LTD in the UK and have both Wise and Revolut for it. Everything works seamlessly, even after Brexit.

Since 2022 I'm a tax resident in Portugal, so I switched my Revolut to this country.

<@UPU5155BJ> Revolut already has a full banking license from Lithuania and all EU users are covered with it. Now they're obtaining a sub licences in many countries to offer local IBAN.

Regardless, they need to follow the KYC standards and it's hard for me to say if it's tightening. It's been my main bank account for years and I personally never had issues with frozen account etc. But I'm also aware of do's and don't's to keep my bank record clean and don't get any red flags.

Moreover, Revolut and Wise are the only fin techs that catch up with my nomadic life. For me staying in one place for months or years never caused any issues in these services.

Revolut, Remitly, Payoneer - for anywhere in world to india (used it with clients)

fyjchyljuggd I would be interested on the dos and don'ts to keep the revolut record clean. My account wasn't frozen so far and I want to keep it that way :D

Hi ! For nomads who look for an interesting legal way to avoid taxes, I found a service that lets you create invoices on your name but as being a member of their company. It costs 5,9% of the invoices, and that's all. But to be sure i think in most countries you have to not stay more than half the year inside their borders. Of course depends on your countries and to double check with a lawyer opinion

sounds like a pretty clear case of tax fraud

It looks legit to me it’s Xolo they are regulated and everything

As soon as that money hits your bank account you need to pay tax on it

So what's the goal of Xolo ? Actually that makes sense. The one who suggested me to subscribe is a millionaire suggesting this especially for my nomad lifestyle... Also regarding my tax lawyer from France it's legit but I didn't check with an Estonian one

you can use it for tax optimisation if it works in your situation, but tax evasion is a crime. You have to pay income tax somewhere.

It will be legal only if you pay 5.9% to Xolo + Your residence country income tax.
So it doesn't make sense because you can work and pay only Your residence country income tax.

Yes, first determine where you are a tax resident. If you don’t like the country, leave and establish yourself elsewhere, then ensure you have a tax declaration between the new country and your country stating you are a tax resident in the new country. Then Xolo may make sense, but even then, better to just establish a company there and invoice yourself, no need to pay 5.9%

Right. What’s the matter of their stuff then? Just when people can’t invoice with their own company?

Starting a company in a country you don’t know can be a headache. Xolo has the legal entity already there. Xolo foes taxes and all of that, so takes that headache most freelancers loathe, away

I was under the impression that if you stay less than 183 days in a year in a country, you don't pay taxes on it. But you do pay taxes on the last country you stayed 183 days in. Is this assumption correct?

it's complicated 🙂 for example, the US might be notoiously hard to get rid of tax obligations

> I was under the impression that if you stay less than 183 days in a year in a country, you don't pay taxes on it. But you do pay taxes on the last country you stayed 183 days in. Is this assumption correct?
>
It's definitely a simplification and can vary greatly depending on the countries involved, but yes, I believe in most cases this is correct

It's an over-simplification. Another over-simplification would be to say "You pay taxes where the work is done" but also applies to many countries and tax systems.

tax residency stays where it is until challenged

Except for Germany. The German authorities let you go without demanding you keep paying taxes except for the current year.

They currently don’t follow up so you kind of end up in a Grauzone where you can actually avoid paying taxes.

It isn’t without risk and not all countries use those 18x days so have to be careful.

Check out staatenlos.sh or their English equivalent.

I use Wise as a bank for my freelancing business. I got an email asking me to explain how I find clients. It's like an anti-money laundry check, which makes sense, and I answered immediately. The thing is that now my case is in a very long queue and my account will stay frozen until it's reviewed. It's been 2 weeks. They've effectively stolen the money I had in that account (EUR27,000). I guess I'll get it back at some point 😬 :pray:...

a) ⚠️ I strongly want to warn anyone from using Wise for your business. :warning:
b) has anyone been in the same situation and gotten out of it? 😅 Can I involve a lawyer to speed things up?

Is this the wise personal account or the wise business account?

Business.

It is usually very straightforward with them. If you have a website with company info, all smooth and easy.

Yeah, "usually" working is not good enough for banking. 😂

It looks like Wise is regulated as a Payment Institution in the EEA, an "investment firm" in Estonia and an Electronic Money Institution in the UK () – so not actually a bank

Yeah, I can tell now that it's not an actual bank. I should have done my research before signing up... 😬

“Usually working” basically applies to any bank. Everything works fine, until one day it doesnt.

Yeah, banks aren't necessarily better, since everyone has to play by the same AML rules that tend to cause these issues

I used a regular bank as a freelancer for 5 years and never had an issue. I used Wise for a few months and this happens. This is not normal.

The issue is not AML rules, the issue is that they let the case sit on the backlog for 2 weeks. That's insane! I have 2 transactions per month (one incoming, one outgoing) - this is not a complex check.

Sucks, but not much can be advised here, you can try to escalate the case through support, there was even an option to call them a while back, maybe still is.
And if you are looking for wise alternatives - dont use Revolut business. Those guys are proper nuts. )

I did talk to support. There's an option to close the account and have money sent back to my client. But that will take 2 weeks, and I'm supposedly at the front of the line for the AML check, so I don't know if I wanna lose my spot... :grimacing:

I actually did open a Revolut account 😅 I can't sign up with a real bank on short notice. I've got an Estonian company through Xolo and would have to go to Estonia to do that. I'm getting rid of Xolo and my Estonian company soon though 👀

I was fortunate enough to have Wise cancel me before I got started.

I do envy you 😂

I feel like I have started to hear more and more negative stuff like this about Wise. I guess they'll be at the PayPal level soon enough. Need to start diversifying! I have real bank accounts too, but still. If a client deposits 20K and they immediately freeze it, then having a bank account is of no help.

👀

not the common case but for reference, as someone who’s never been able to use wise business (and whose bank banned transfers from revolut)—IBKR for currency exchange has great rates and is reliable. swift fees are nothing compared to shitty local bank forex rates… i just wish ibkr had a good debit/credit card so one could use it as a bank account

I’m mostly interested in ease of UX than exchange. I need to seamlessly receive and send payments.

I got almost half of my money refunded to my (new) Revolut account and the rest was (supposedly) refunded to my client! :tada:

If anyone else is having the same problem, then what I think did the trick was that I asked to have my account closed. I _think_ the queue for closing accounts is way shorter than the AML queue. But I don't know for sure.