Pretty sure some countries are doing this already.
There's quite a few now, something like 33 countries with these visas. The terms tend to vary. I took advantage of the first one, the Barbados digital nomad visa which they created to work around the loss of tourism due to COVID. Since most taxes in Barbados are sales taxes and they have a peg to the US dollar it has worked well for them in terms of foreign currency reserves and supporting the tourist industry during the pandemic.
Other countries like Costa Rica require visa holders to pay local income tax which is fair enough while others don't or have a reduced rate.
I'm unsure of the overall morality of it but it can be done legally through the correct pathways as I have been doing.
I don't like that people will just do it on tourist visas instead though which I'd guess is the bulk of the objection to it.
In my head we all pay the dues somewhere in some form to begin with - property taxes, sales taxes, income taxes etc.
It’s one thing if you’re avoiding paying those.
but how is it different that Twitter gets a tax write off to move to the Tenderloin. and if Joe/Jill chooses to move to the suburbs or temporarily move to Mexico while still paying state and federal income tax. sure there maybe some property tax loss but isn’t housing crisis already an issue? don’t company incorporate in Ireland to pay less tax?
It's only going to get worse as the differentials increase.
Companies moving to Ireland IMO are definitely exploiting tax loop holes and committing fraud. You and I and all of the countries devoid of tax revenue are hurt by companies benefiting from tax-avoidance loop holes.
Real answer: The "software engineering perspective" you have here is irrelevant to tax/immigration law. Taxation is based on where you live and work (physically). And countries very much get their say on whether or not they'll allow you to live there, for how long, and for what purposes.
This isn't about an individual's right to free movement. It is about keeping employers honest about where their employees work and making sure they are paying their fair share of local taxes.
Groups of people put a strain on the local resources, we need those local taxes to fund those things.
If individuals were allowed to live somewhere and dodge the local taxes, every large company would use this to their advantage. Suddenly campuses of workers would all now be "remote" employees from their offices in some tax friendly area. This would put an undo strain on the local tax base who are now having to foot the tax bill for those not paying their share.
In reality, there are IP kind of laws, contract enforcement, taxes, time zones ...
Then you have this bright idea of “oh let me go to another cheaper country and get the benefit of their cheaper society but still command high salary”.
And you still don’t want to pay tax in that country.
Foreigners like these need to be ban 10000%. Losers that can’t compete in their home country and still don’t want to pay taxes everywhere they live.
I signed up for your job in a certain location and a certain date. That doesn't entitle you to keep track of where I am the rest of my life. As long as I'm able to be reached at the initially agreed upon location, regardless of how I maintain that communications channel, I never agreed to let you dictate where I live and move to and frankly nobody has that right.
Or is my body my choice just a convenient catchphrase for one topic only?