Considering that this thread is already “on fire” i think it would be much appreciated ! Finally this might be the ultimate goal for many of us (myself included) so definitely interested into knowing more !
Also the topic of the international health insurance as this would make a big difference in $$$ I guess (I’m planning as a couple) !
It will be nice to hear your feedback on your nomad journey.
On case of an issue with the taxman, it will be very hard to prove that you are not link to Switzerland. If you own bank account in Switzerland they could assume you still depend on it.
The best will be to elect a base in a low taxed country such as Bulgaria and rent a small flat full-time even if you Airbnb it during your trips. so you can give a tax address outside of Switzerland in needed.
Please share your story here. A perpetual traveller with 10 years experience is hard to find.
As many people here are classical liberals/libertarians, you will not be eaten alive by telling that you paid no tax for being „existant“ in a country.
„But a PT who enters a country with intent to work is in many cases technically violating the law.
Second, even if you are a non-resident (for tax purposes), any income earned from work that took place in a jurisdiction should generally be submitted on a tax return. Failing to do so may be a crime. However, chances are no one is going to go after you for failing to submit a tax return that states you owe no tax.“
As I see it: Foreign guy that works a few hours from his hotel room for foreign customers and is creating a digital product without taking „someones job“ or is using the infrastructure will (and should) probably never be taxed. All those fancy presence tests for KPMG/Deloitte, that one has to do when working for an international company are not only a commitment, but also a safeguard. If you „fail“ the test, you do not have to pay tax.
As for your broker accounts, there are some options:
IIRC Degiro is just for europeans and they would not accept anything outside the continent. Register your home address with Interactive Brokers and pay the swiss taxes on it. You will not get around it, Common Reporting Standard is here to stay. Remember, that you will be sacked not just with dividend taxation but also the swiss wealth tax. Getting the 15% witholding tax back seems undoable from my point of view.
Establish a holding company. Canadian LP/LLP if you want a „good“ reputation, other jurisdictions as seychelles etc. for cheaper yearly cost. As the company is now liable for taxation and not you, things will change a bit. The tax will be zero in the classical tax havens. Also possible is a „see-through structure“ (most LLCs or LLPs) which passes the taxation burden to you as the private owner. As you are tax resident nowhere, the tax is still zero. This method costs and is not efficient for 50k. Also offshore has a steep learning curve and changes often. For example in almost all cases the witholding tax on US stocks/ETFs will be 30% that you cannot get back instead of the swiss 15%, because the US likes to pester small countries that stand in their way for the title of „Tax Haven No.1“
Get yourself a little/no or territorial tax residence and use it (even if you travel year-round).
Same thing as step 2, you will probably pay 30% witholding tax on dividends to the USA and you cannot get it back. Probably still the best method.
Sites like Staatenlos.ch/blog are full with opportunities.
Bahamas Beats Programme: 1 year residence permit for 1000USD/BSD fee. Country is tax-free. Can be extended for 3 years total
Andorra Self-Employed Program, Paraguay Permanent Residency, Panama Friendly Nations visa, etc.
If one could just get not to pay taxes by having no place of residence, I bet all the rich people would just live “nowhere”, whether that is on their yacht, or changing country every month.
As I don’t see this happening, I conclude that there is a catch. You should be careful and probably get a place of residency asap.
But “rich people” mostly don’t live on yachts or out of a suitcase and do spend >90 or >180 days in one country per year. It becomes very tedious changing mansion every 3 months, and also one has to always time it right.
I don’t agree.
An official place of residency solves nothing, unless you are saying he should settle down. The problem is “declaring” “purpose of visit” as tourism when not quite true. Some pseudo-residency in a place he is at Xmas every 2nd year doesn’t help solve that.
Thanks, you’ve gave me quite some amount to read about.
Alright, I’ll share my story, eventhough it’s quite simple, but now I’m too tired. Even a computer scientist sometimes does other stuff than sitting the whole day in front of the computer ;-).
@Dago: I don’t mind thaaat much about paying taxes, it wouldn’t be too much anyway. But if I’d had for example paid the swiss health insurance the last few year, there wouldn’t be too much money left on my banc account. And I also hate all the administrative hazzle… Which is usually a lot worse, when you’re never around to personally speak with people. And also you never getting proper replies. I’ve tried getting information at the commercial registry office and AHV, but people there are unable to give you any useful answers. Besides that it’s impossible that you become residenceless, and blablabla.
I agree with rolandinho. You need quite some experience and the proper mind set to do so. I’ve met a looot of people which went traveling. Most want to return home after about half a year. They want to get back to a stable life, stable friends, especially a stable place to sleep at etc. In my experience the ones which manage to spend a year traveling, never return back home. Personally I’m never happier than when I’m standing somewhere in the middle of nowhere at the side of the road, no idea of where I’m going to and where I’ll sleep that night.
So you don’t have a health insurance? Overall sounds a bit too adventerous to me…
You can get International Health insurance relatively cheap, if you are not forced by law to pick a Swiss one.
Ya but most of them will have a passus that they can transport you to a home country and “discharge” you to your home social security system or whatever…
As a swiss, you can get “offloaded” here and you get automatically accepted by any health insurance.
As far as I know, Medical air transports are incredibly expensive, so I doubt any insurance would try drop you in your home country, as long as there is an other cheaper possibility of keeping you alive.
@MrCheese Even though a big part of mankind doesn’t have a health insurance, I definitely don’t want to be one of them. And I absolutely don’t recommend anyone to relay on the free health care system provided by some countries.
If I remember correctly, youv’e got 3 months after arriving to switzerland to register at a health insurance. But the health insurance needs to pay any treatment from the moment you entered switzerland, even if you register with them after the treatment. When you register at a municipality as living there, they’ll ask you when you’ve entered Switzerland. The date you tell them will be the official date of you entering Switzerland as far as the health insurances are concerned.
Probably there are also some clauses about what happens if you are unable to do the necessary steps yourself because you are unconscious. But I’ve got no idea…
Anyway. To stay on topic. I will rethink the whole thing and read some more informations. But propably I’ll just try it out and see what happens. Since as far as I can see: registering at an other country will propably cost more than the yearly return I could expect from my money. Maybe that’ll change in the future.
That part of your story really scares me! You essentially filled out a form that allows you to reclaim US taxes because of a US-Swiss treaty. That means that the US will communicate with Switzerland for tax reasons. I don’t know what fake tax ID you put in there, but in a year’s time, the Swiss authorities will tell the US that this number doesn’t exist, and then, only god knows how long it will be before you are being tracked back by the US fiscal authorities. Interactivebrokers also could be in trouble with US authorities.
At best your account will be frozen, and at worst you will go to jail. I wouldn’t play that game; you’re risking a lot here!
@SwissDan is maybe a bit dramatic, but correct. 
With that form W8-BEN you’ve confirmed you are a tax resident in CH. US WHT deducted by IB reduces from 30 to 15%, with the IRS losing out…
I assume you used the AHV number as TIN, this is not “fake”, but not quite correct use of the number on such a form, if you’re not a tax resident of CH at that time.
I’d recommend “cancelling” that form at IB, due to “change in residency”. Unfortunately IB is not going to be keen to have a client with no tax residency though.
I’d recommend a Swiss broker, they won’t ask about tax residency, and everybody gets the WHT and Verrechnungssteuer that is due and is happy.
Not easy…
I think if you simply cancel the W8Ben form in IB you will solve the problem with US IRS. I have had occasions in the past where my W8Ben form went past its expiry date. The only consequence was that US WHT on dividends was applied at 30% instead of 15%.
I really doubt IRS will notice what has happened and come after you unless you have claimed large amounts of deductions in WHT. If in doubt and you want to be 100% clean consider writing them a letter explaining the error due to a misunderstanding and you would like to pay it back. Perhaps google what the implications of that would be (probably just some late interest).
If your municipality deregistered you then I doubt there will be any serious implications on the CH side. Even supposing they do decide at a later date that you should have been resident here all this time and have to file a tax return, you can demonstrate that you have already paid WHT in the USA. If your income is low then I would assume there would be nothing to pay
Not financial advice, just my opinion !
That’s simply not true. We can be über-correct or Bünzli about & condemn his “homeless” status, but I would think esp. this forum is open to this life-choice.
I certainly don’t want to encourage tax fraud. Could you clarify where you think it exists?
Says who? UN Charter of Human Right To Be Taxed? God?
That statement is most probably not true either.
As to the anti-social part, we have had this discussion before, I can confirm some will agree with you, others won’t. I don’t.
It’s simply not so easy as to go to the Tax authorities in some place & say, please tax this income of mine, I earned it while in your country for 3 months. So what to do?
Depends on the countries you are in and their rules. They might not tax people that work in remote jobs and stay no longer than x months / days. If you only stay in these countries during any given year you won’t be taxable anywhere that year.
My thoughts:
USA: If OP corrects the W8Ben form then he /she is fully in compliance from an IRS point of view (so long as no work has been performed in USA)
Countries worked in for couple of days: In theory income might need to be declared and not doing so might be tax fraud. In practice local authorities are unlikely to start going after this. It would open Pandora’s box e.g. Employees of Multi Nationals going on vacation overseas and working for a couple of days
CH: OP is only in CH for Christmas every 2-3 years. I am pretty sure that does not make him resident in CH.
Q) is there is any principle which says that in the absence of having a centre of life anywhere else then the centre of life has to be CH due to e.g. having Swiss nationality and parents living here ?
In this event all work activities were performed outside CH so in theory there is no income to be taxed here. In practice CH authorities might want to tax the income if it can’t be demonstrated that it was declared elsewhere. Wealth would be subject to tax too