I currently live in a typical
OECD country with high taxes (A). I'm a citizen of another OECD country just like that (B). Country A is outside the EU and is not the US, country B is inside the EU. I make my money with an online-based business and with customers around the world. Most of them are neither in A or B. I currently run my business through a local company in A but can easily shift this to an
offshore company.
Suppose I give up my current residency in A, set up an
offshore company for business, and live as a "
nomad", changing location every three months. So I'd be in four different locations each year. Of those, two would be A and B, always, and always just under three months. The others would vary from year to year.
Why do I need any
tax residency anywhere? With this nomad lifestyle, I am in actual fact not a resident of anywhere, so I shouldn't be taxable anywhere. What am I missing?
Look. Internet discussions aside. The tangible, real-world problem you will face when living in EU15 nations without being known as a tax resident in that, or any country, is this:
1. Communal registers in all EU15 nations perform door-to-door checks to see how many people, and sometimes who, are/is living on an address. You can slip through the net for a few months or a few years, but sooner or later someone from the register will knock on the door. Or your neighbors rat you out. Or you yourself call the cops/fire service/the ambulance because you need their help, and they subsequently report the # and IDs of the people living on that address to the commune. It is extremely hard to live on an address in EU15, without the commune's knowledge.
2. The commune will at some point cross-reference the fact that somebody is paying water, gas and electricity bills on that address, but is simultaneously neither registered as employed nor registered as being on benefits. This is one of the most standard,
in some cases periodic, cross-references carried out by EU15 communes after a person is registered on an address.
3. When there is a match where someone is spending money to live somewhere, but is not registered as earning money either in that country or elsewhere, the commune forwards this mismatch to the tax authority who will then begin to put 1 or 2 public or private investigators on the case in order to find out where this person's money to pay their cost of living comes from.
These investigators will go through your mail. They will take photos of you entering and exiting the address. They will inventory the value of your clothes, the costs related to your children's schooling, note the presence of a wife or girlfriend and keep track of your other mobile and immobile assets.
And then they fucking murder you. With an estimated tax bill based on your calculated Yearly Consumption Spend, plus 500%. Payable within 30 days. Or face a court summons.
The whole point of that
checkmate move is to shake you out of your address and into their office, where you will hopefully come clean and pay a fine much lower than the issued tax bill on the condition that you will not be caught like that a second time.
The whole thing will eat years of your life away and is not worth it. Don't play with EU15 nations if you don't want to pay taxes. Live elsewhere. There is plenty choice. Staying in EU15 is a death sentence.