EU tax advice…. Where?

Bit of an odd situation.

I’m not registered anywhere. Officially of no fixed abode.

I closed down my company in Germany as the costs and upfront tax payments were killer.

Got some jobs next year and I’ll need a business set up again.

Where does one find an account who can advise on where best to set oneself up and about the intricacies of EU taxation?

Assuming you want to pay tax you will need an address in the country where you are going to pay tax. That might determine where you end up declaring.

Realistically you could probably get away with not paying tax anywhere, but it’s likely to make things like holding bank accounts and pensions complicated.

You should probably register in a country where you spend the most time / do most of your work.

Probably best to pick the country first then find an accountant there.

You probably don’t want to end up declaring in multiple countries, as that would be a massive headache!

Or the country with the lowest tax rate…

Just looking at Corporate Income Tax Rates Hungary is only 9% vs Germany 29.9%. So find an accountant in Hungary!

RetroTom makes some good points!
Also worth considering, where’s the work coming from (ie where are the clients based) and are they happy enough to work with a vendor in any particular country – or do their finance teams insist it should be someone ‘local’ for VAT etc reasons?

Estonia may be worth a look. We set up e-residence there easily and cheaply, when considering an EU base for our business. Never came to anything and we let it lapse, but your business can easily be hosted there (AIUI) regardless of your physical location.

Or the country with the lowest tax rate…

Just looking at Corporate Income Tax Rates Hungary is only 9% vs Germany 29.9%. So find an accountant in Hungary!

its not as simple as that, tax law often looks for which country you’re “economically active” in – ie where you are effectively living most of your life. If the OP isn’t economically active in Hungary he can’t just elect it as where he wants to pay tax

OP – check some ex-pat forums, they tend to have people who’ve been through some of this

Just looking at Corporate Income Tax Rates Hungary is only 9% vs Germany 29.9%. So find an accountant in Hungary!

Yeah, exactly…. Germany isn’t the most attractive place to do business. Neither is Austria or Portugal….

Bulgaria, Cyprus, Ireland and Malta are places worth looking at as far as I understand things.

I’m not resident anywhere. Hold a British and German passport.

I live in my van and spend my time for the most part chasing the sun and riding my bike.  Proving that I’m anywhere without registering myself is difficult.

Jobs are mostly online. I’ve a few jobs lined up for summer where I need to physically be there, both in Germany, but they’re private cash-in-hand jobbies.

Next year I’ve got the possibility of work, but for a German company, but working in Barcelona and Copenhagen. For this I need to be able to invoice.

Not adverse to paying tax, but obviously don’t want to be paying tax at ~30% if I don’t have to.

I could in theory set up a Ltd UK company, but I’m very reluctant to register in the UK. Having been outside of the UK for over 15 years I’m no longer eligible to pay capital gains tax on my UK investments when as and when I cash them in.

Really I need an account or financial adviser who understands the ins and outs of EU systems.

The concept you are grasping for is tax residency. It is not necessarily the same as physical residence. You can even be tax resident in multiple countries simultaneously. You cannot just decide that you (and/or your company) are tax resident in Hungary or the Seychelles just because they charge less. It’s immaterial that you’re not registered as living anywhere – homeless people and illegal immigrants are still tax resident.

Also, there are numerous dodgy vendors on Instagram selling Ecuadorian companies and saying you can be tax resident in Ecuador (or wherever). That’s great but it doesn’t get you out of your existing tax residency status if you don’t actually go there!

This page is a good place to start: https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/germany/individual/residence

For the Scottish audience it might be worth clarifying that an ‘in hand jobbie’ isn’t what they think it is🤣

Where are you resident ? Where are you most often, and likely to call on healthcare, other costs that you seem to be so keen on dodging and relying on scrounging off others

Ignoring cash jobs, most folk are wary of paying into foreign bank accounts – how will you be paid for the Spanish work (assuming German bank account)?

If you’re going to be a freelancer for a German company, be aware their rules are tighter than many other EU countries. Their laws to avoid disguised employment are much tighter. What’s your trade? You might have to make it very clear than none of your work is in Germany itself. Talking to an expert in Germany would be my starting point. Then perhaps one of the countries you’ll be working in. Looking at a third country that you won’t be working in, that the company you going to be working for is not based, and in which you don’t live… that might be just making things unnecessarily hard for yourself if there are complications and you are asked to talk in person to officials.

Where are you resident ? Where are you most often, and likely to call on healthcare, other costs that you seem to be so keen on dodging and relying on scrounging off others

Resident nowhere…..didn’t realise you could do this, but it turns out you can. Went to the German town hall, said I’m leaving, they ask where to, I say I don’t know.

My Ausweis /ID says no address in Germany.

This freed me from being tied into the German health care system where I was paying 370€/month with an excess of 1200€.

Also meant I could shut down my company without any problems (other than having to pay the 58€ fee for the paperwork) and get out of energy provider contracts without any penalty for leaving the contract earlier than planned.

If/as and when I register elsewhere I have to inform them. That’s it.

Where am I most often? Hard to say as I don’t really have a plan…. Last year was in the UK for 1/2 a month, Spain for ~5 months, France for ~3, Germany 2 and Italy for 3…. Been in Italy for all of the year so far, but going to France in summer and then to Germany for ~3 months…. After that I’m not sure.

Re. Health care…. Don’t worry…. I’m not scrounging off anyone.

I have a private, worldwide heath insurance. Cost is 820€ a year.

I pay the medical bills and the insurance company reimburses me (had this in January with a tooth)

If you’re going to be a freelancer for a German company, be aware their rules are tighter than many other EU countries. Their laws to avoid disguised employment are much tighter.

I know…. Had a business, albeit a one man band set up, in Germany for 14 years. Went through the whole. “Scheinselbstständigkeit” at the beginning… Had just started and as such didn’t have many customers. Had three customers, but 80% of my income came from one company. The tax office laid off once I explained what was going on and weren’t interested once things levelled out.

I’m a chippy by trade, but have got into set design/planning for trade fairs and exhibitions.

Current customers are in Germany.

@politecameraaction……

Cheers for that link.

But I’m still unclear on how it works as a self employed entity.

If for instance I was registered in Italy and my customers were all in Germany, would I be taxed in Germany or Italy?

It is worth bearing in mind that physical residency is not the same thing as tax residency, and any country that you have/had ties to might try to claim you as a resident for tax purposes even if you are not physically resident, with the onus on you to prove you are not (which may require demonstrating that you are a tax resident elsewhere…).

There are so many issues to unravel here bit broadly you’ve got three intertwined issues to deal with – and they mean one way of the other you are very likely will have an obligation to tax in an EU country where the work is done. Unless you decide not to declare it which is a different matter.

1. First there is where you are resident personally – that depends on the rules in each country you spend time in (there is no EU common rule – though many are similar) – its country by country – and if you end up resident in two places there will be a treaty which awards tax residency to one country or another.
2. The company will have a tax residence too – it will usually be tax resident where is is centrally managed and controlled. So setting up a Jersey company and running it from the UK say achieves nothing – you may as well have had a UK company in the first place. If its managed from different places then you have to look at rules in each country to decide if it hits the residence criteria. Using a Jersey company allows you possibly go under the radar but clients anti-money laundering processes might pick up income is not being declared.
3. Finally and crucially, wherever you end up resident or the company ends up tax resident, if you work from a fixed location anywhere in the EU, its possible/probable you or your company will have a taxable presence anyway and any profits should be declared. Again this is complex, but the example (from memory) given in the international guidance on tax treaties is a painter painting walls at a clients premises abroad. The painter has a taxable presence himself and is taxed on  his profits. So the residency stuff is a diversion from the real problem.
4. Generally work gets taxed where the work is done.

Reading through these answers has jogged my memory a bit on this, as I have a multi-country tax situation.

As above, you must be a tax resident of somewhere (for the purposes of employment income etc). Where you are tax resident is not necessarily the same as where you are physically resident, but it would generally be assessed on physical ties to a particular country, including property (obviously none), bank accounts, pensions etc. In Canada allegedly they’d try to say a driving licence is evidence of tax residency in Canada. It all sounds a bit thin for you; Estonia would be a stretch unless you had evidence of links there.

The fallback is where you’re domiciled for tax (the infamous dom/ non-dom). I have been told by EU solicitors that this will generally be your country of birth.
So, if there is no other pressing place in which you could claim (personal) tax residency, it could well be the UK. If you end up doing all (or a large chunk) of your work for a period of time in Germany, it’d probably be Germany.

But a good German tax accountant would be a great place to start!

Alpin, this guy does my tax

He is right on the border of Germany and Switzerland so has EU / non EU experience. I’m self employed and get paid from Schweiz and Buergin deal with it all.

HTH

@rickmeister cheers!

Will give him a klingeln… My old “accountant”* said he didn’t know enough about it and is retiring now due to ill health.

* accountant in “-” because German accountants are not allowed officially to help you streamline your tax…. They can can’t even advise on how you go about paying less tax. They can only do what you instruct them to do.

My accountant didn’t stick to these rules… 😏

Depends on the accountant I guess.. If you’re literally just paying them a fixed rate to do an annual tax return they are not going to be offering much advice..