This fucking country

As I, We live in third world mate

SultanSultan said:

It is funny how some people here despise the most democratic and free states of the world and admire countries like China and Russia. What the fuck is wrong with you people?

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its funny when opposing those 2 countries to such words as democracy and freedom, that in reality cant be found in any country
at the same time there are many people who renounce US citizenship. I guess because of democracy overdose.

we currently live in a digital nomad era. While working online and paying high taxes its always a better choice to move to a low tax place. countries start to compete for such people. Estonia recently introduced digital nomad visa. Georgia, Portugal, Croatia, Thailand are on the list as well

SultanSultan said:

You must differentiate between economic and personal freedom. If all you care about is reducing your tax burden, then move to Saudi-Arabia, Qatar or the UAE and pay close to no taxes but to be honest with you I would rather pay 40% in taxes and live in the US than pay no taxes and live in Saudi-Arabia. I agree with you on some points and I don't like it either that the West became so hostile towards businesses and that the Left gains more and more popularity. I also thought about moving to another country if this trend continues but the question is where can you go and maintain your quality of life, have similiar civil liberties and don't have to be afraid to be jailed for the rest of your life because of one tweet?

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I think that a nice middle ground can be found between personal freedom and economic freedom.

But unfortunately that changes as laws change.

But not being able to leave a country and stop being a tax resident of that country, I mean, I'm not your fucking property, government!

deedee1whoa said:

So, how exactly do you plan to get that 2nd passport thanks to your grandma (who, I'm guessing, has a dual nationality)? I'm asking about the process.

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Mom was born in that other country, grandmom was born there too, great grandmom was born there too. I should be able to tap into that and get that passport.

I also spent 14 years in a EU country, and then I left. There may be a chance I can go back, stay here for a few months/years, and get that passport too.

I wasn't planning on doing any of that, but now that I realized my government wants me to be a slave and destroy my means of income and be aggressive and threaten and scare me, I have to make moves.

I'm a nice guy. Give me a fair system for running my business without much intrusion, and inform me that I have to pay my taxes. Okay, I'm game.

But when you threaten and scare me with a huge charge up to 80% of my income for everything I earned in the past 5 years, otherwise you take everything I own, or even throw me in prison. And then you put in front of me a tax system where you can put me in a situation where I open a business and make money, and then 1/2/3 years you come and determine I don't pass some stupid test, and you jack my taxes for a bunch of payments I received from my regular 10% to 50%, and force me to pay it.

I mean... good bye....

I understand that in the balkans everything must be done aggressively. But I'm not one of you guys. Just ask me nicely, and I'll do it, no need to scream

The country you are in already has a really good tax system and the tax rate is very low once you start earning over the maximum threshold for social taxes.

Scorpion Ghost said:

Mom was born in that other country, grandmom was born there too, great grandmom was born there too. I should be able to tap into that and get that passport.

I also spent 14 years in a EU country, and then I left. There may be a chance I can go back, stay here for a few months/years, and get that passport too.

I wasn't planning on doing any of that, but now that I realized my government wants me to be a slave and destroy my means of income and be aggressive and threaten and scare me, I have to make moves.

I'm a nice guy. Give me a fair system for running my business without much intrusion, and inform me that I have to pay my taxes. Okay, I'm game.

But when you threaten and scare me with a huge charge up to 80% of my income for everything I earned in the past 5 years, otherwise you take everything I own, or even throw me in prison. And then you put in front of me a tax system where you can put me in a situation where I open a business and make money, and then 1/2/3 years you come and determine I don't pass some stupid test, and you jack my taxes for a bunch of payments I received from my regular 10% to 50%, and force me to pay it.

I mean... good bye....

I understand that in the balkans everything must be done aggressively. But I'm not one of you guys. Just ask me nicely, and I'll do it, no need to scream

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100%. Completely reasonable. They'll probably come to their senses, but... it'll be too late for many lost ones, people who will leave and not look back. And that's very much understandable.

ExperimentalSEO said:

The country you are in already has a really good tax system and the tax rate is very low once you start earning over the maximum threshold for social taxes.

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The tax rate is all right, but there's a system in place where they can come to me at any time and decide I need to pay 50% on some of the payments I received, and that can go years and years back. The decision is up to the tax man looking at my business.

Lawyers, accountants, they're all unsure how exactly this system is interpreted, but they all pretty much agree that the tax man can decide however he wants, within reason.

And I also saw that if you take the decision to court or whatever, you'll almost surely lose, as the courts always side with the tax man.

I can't do that. I'd rather pay 15% and know that That Is It as long as I follow the rules, rather than pay 10% with the possibility of a backtracked 50% being imposed on me at the tax man's whim.

Scorpion Ghost said:

The tax rate is all right, but there's a system in place where they can come to me at any time and decide I need to pay 50% on some of the payments I received, and that can go years and years back. The decision is up to the tax man looking at my business.

Lawyers, accountants, they're all unsure how exactly this system is interpreted, but they all pretty much agree that the tax man can decide however he wants, within reason.

And I also saw that if you take the decision to court or whatever, you'll almost surely lose, as the courts always side with the tax man.

I can't do that. I'd rather pay 15% and know that That Is It as long as I follow the rules, rather than pay 10% with the possibility of a backtracked 50% being imposed on me at the tax man's whim.

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Unless you are forging expenses, you aren't going to be paying 50% tax when the tax rate is 10%.

deedee1whoa said:

100%. Completely reasonable. They'll probably come to their senses, but... it'll be too late for many lost ones, people who will leave and not look back. And that's very much understandable.

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They may, but I can't live on hope. My stress levels don't go down much with hope.

I lived in a EU country for 14 years, and I came back to my home country for no reason other than for love of country, to be with my people, my language, all that childish crap.

I didn't really find that I belong here, I guess I've been away too long and left too young. But still, no one bothers me and I don't bother anyone, and it's okay.

But now that the government decided to scare and threaten me (us), and now that I'm convinced that I have a government here that's hostile to my work and means of making money and earning a living, I can't continue to be here anymore.

deedee1whoa said:

Not fair. But hopefully things will change in the future. For the better, of course.

And hope it's ASAP. People aren't dumb, hopefully they will make the government make a change.

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i think one of the biggest problem is the people itself, most people including president minister etc, will pioritize self interest.
(not to mention most democracy system, is very expensive. No one in their right mind will invest a lot of money to get choosen as official(minister,senate, etc) . than only to take all the loss.
also returning the favor of everyone that help you get the position).
the only way to make sure change, is to mgirate some of the gov work to AI.

ExperimentalSEO said:

Unless you are forging expenses, you aren't going to be paying 50% tax when the tax rate is 10%.

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Wrong.

There's a test, and when you register a business you self-determine if you pass this test. The test has 9 points. It was implemented about a year ago.

The test is not applied on your entire business, but on every transaction you receive.

The test can be vague-ish, so that the tax man can pretty much interpret some aspects of it however he wants.

Lawyers and accountants have many disagreements on the interpretations of each point.

So then you register your business and you work for 3 years. At that point they come and do an audit, and check all of your transactions.

So we have transaction A, B, and C. The tax man decides you pass the test on transaction A and B, but you don't pass C.

Your tax rate is 10%.

So now what happens with transaction C (and probably all other transactions you received from that 1 customer going back to the beginning of your business) is that your tax rate for that/those transactions goes up to 50%, because it falls outside of the system of taxation you've chosen. And now you have to pay the additional 40% on each of those transactions.

Go fuck yourselves! Unacceptable.

There's right ways of doing business, and this ain't it.

Can you post a link to the law?

OK, I figured out what country we're talking about. Those tax rates are indeed very low if you compare them internationally. What are the prerequisites for the higher 50% rate if I may ask?

SIM-3089037 said:

Macedonia is on another planet for us. Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia are fucked up by politicians and criminal.

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No shit? We have blooming flowers here?

ExperimentalSEO said:

Unless you are forging expenses, you aren't going to be paying 50% tax when the tax rate is 10%.

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Here - https://aktivasistem.com/news/independence-test-entrepreneurs-serbia/

It's not the law itself, but should give you an idea.

The reason they passed it was actually in order to close a loophole employees and employers were doing to reduce taxes.

So if you work for a company and your salary is $500/mo, your employer has to pay like an additional $300/mo for your pension and healthcare etc (the numbers are rough estimates, just to make a point).

So what people would do is they would go register as a "business," like a sole proprietorship or whatever, and they would get a fixed monthly fee of say $200, for their taxes.

So now the employer would pay them 700, and they would pay the $200 to the government, and the employer would save $100. Or maybe the employer would give them the $800 and they pay $200 and keep $600 (instead of the original $500). Or maybe they cut it down the middle and they get $750, so they both employer and employee make/keep an extra $50.

And this was legal, but with this test they closed that loophole... plus they opened up the ability to charge you for any transaction at any time they want at 50%.

Government smart, killed 2 birds with one stone, got you by the balls. But that doesn't work for me.

Anyway, that's the situation how I understand it.

Songhort said:

OK, I figured out what country we're talking about. Those tax rates are indeed very low if you compare them internationally. What are the prerequisites for the higher 50% rate if I may ask?

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See my last post...

Basically, as an individual you are taxed at 50%.

If you register a business, there are 2 methods that most people use. With one you pay a set monthly fee, and with the other a 10% + a few other minor things, but let's say 10%.

However with that test the tax man can either take you our of the set monthly fee and put you back at 50% under that tax system...

...or he can set any transactions you receive at 50% and charge you for them going back as many years as he wants/your business has existed for as many payments as he wants.

For comparison sake, Quatar has no accountant requirements and no reporting and no audits... and no taxes...

So then, where do we go from here?

haha very nice

If you are an actually an independent contractor, you aren't going to fail the test.

ExperimentalSEO said:

If you are an actually an independent contractor, you aren't going to fail the test.

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Can you guarantee that? 100%?

Keep in mind it's the tax man that decides.

Or maybe I can just go to a more business-friendly country and, you know, NOT HAVE TO THINK ABOUT IT AT ALL. That sounds better to me. But maybe that just me and I'm just fucking stupid

Scorpion Ghost said:

Can you guarantee that? 100%?

Keep in mind it's the tax man that decides.

Or maybe I can just go to a more business-friendly country and, you know, NOT HAVE TO THINK ABOUT IT AT ALL. That sounds better to me. But maybe that just me and I'm just fucking stupid

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Yes I can guarantee that 100%.

The tax rate is not 50% for individuals, it starts dropping rapidly as you surpass the maximum social security contribution basis. $120,000 a year a person in your country has an effective tax rate of 28%, at $1 million a year its 16.6%

Mhh. Rules like that exist in most countries, so it doesn't look unusual. It seems though that the implementation isn't very professional from what you are saying.

The rules are mainly there to protect freelancers who are otherwise often doing the same stuff as employees but without the added perks like social security, paid leave, etc.