- Joined
- Jan 2020
- Messages
- 10,049
acode said:I have a friend couple that have been digital nomads in SEA for 3 years. They spent their time in different countries without properly establishing a tax residency elsewhere so they are still officially registered in their home country which is a high tax country in EU.
This is plain stupid. They are evading taxes in that high tax EU country without even being physically there 🤦
It's not a bad idea to become compliant, but if the goal is long term peace of mind, Bulgaria isn’t exactly the promised land: it’s more of a waiting room between the shithole called Georgia and the tax gulag of the EUSSR.
Paying minimum salaries while pulling the real money as dividends is technically legal, but local authorities aren’t stupid. The Bulgarian NRA knows that this trick is overused, and they can (and sometimes do) reclassify part of the dividends as undeclared salary if it looks like disguised remuneration.
As for running client payments through the US LLC and then having the Bulgarian company invoice it after the fact: don’t. That’s just retroactive profit shifting. It works until someone audits and decides those revenues never legally belonged to the Bulgarian entity. Either consolidate operations in Bulgaria (and abandon the LLC) or keep the LLC as your active company and live in Bulgaria as individuals declaring foreign income under the local flat tax system.
And no, going back home to the EUSSR later isn’t a smart move unless they are masochists and enjoy paperwork, taxes and confiscations. If they really want to settle somewhere safe and compliant they should consider a real non EU base, somewhere that doesn’t treat entrepreneurs like criminals for being successful.
