For some reason software engineers often think they can work remotely and live wherever they want. I lived in Japan for a long time and english-speaking forums about Japan are full of people asking how to move to Japan and keep a US job, or matter-of-factly stating "I have a spouse visa and get paid to my US account so I don't have pay taxes in Japan" which is of course completely wrong.

They can spend 5 months in Japan, 4 months in Korea and 3 months in Hong Kong each year and be fine wrt taxation if they work remotely in the US.

From a US point of view maybe but it’s complicated in Japan. For starters you are not allowed to work remotely on a tourist visa waiver and work done remotely I Japan is not “foreign sourced income”, at least not for a normal situation. There’s conditions which may trigger tax residency, and finally regardless of your status, work done in Japan can cause liabilities for the US company.

Also the posts I mentioned are almost universally “I assume or have assumed that I can just buy a house and work remotely from Japan”, but there a few that are looking for loopholes to be a digital nomad.

You are most likely correct - those who want to own a property/live there forever are out of luck and likely bend local laws. It's always best to talk to your tax advisor wrt these issues to avoid any troubles later (I did to mine before I traveled around the world working remotely).

You still need residency for your income. In this case, it'll probably be the USA unless you can convince the IRS otherwise.

If you make sure you aren't living in a single country for over 180 days, you can still utilize Dubai taxation. For example, you spend 179 days in your home country in the spring/summer, then travel a bit for a few months, then park in Dubai for winter. With regular Dubai visa, you'd need to spend 8 months there. Dubai's CoL is comparable to Germany. If you earn $200+k/year remotely, you can buy a house in your home country in a few years and move back. 0% tax means you get $200k, with monthly living expenses around $2000 including health insurance and rent, keeping $176k (adjust when married with kids etc.).

You can also do that without Dubai visa.

Maybe if you are in a country with super low taxes for IT folks like Romania, Poland, Croatia etc. But that won't work in Germany, Benelux, France, Spain, Italy, Scandinavia where taxes can be 40-60% at that income level.

What I meant is if you spend less than 180 days in a country (in general), you are not taxed in that country irregardless of whether you have a Dubai visa or not. You can alternate between any 2-3 countries and it doesn't have to include Dubai. Country of citizenship is mostly irrelevant unless you are American.

I think you'd need at least one country to give you a taxation statement for a given year or you risk your home country will extract those taxes from you later. I can ask my tax person about it.

I get you don't really understand well how these things work. I suggest you don't give advice in this area. Some people will find themselves in trouble because of it.

I am not giving advice, every country is different. But that is the most common rule, with some caveats.

I think Spain has the "Beckam Law" that you don't get taxed for 6 years if your revenue comes from out of Spain (remote work)

You need to reside at least 10 years in Spain before you can invoke Beckham's Law, so not an option for many people.

I searched online and it says:

> Not having been a resident during the 10 years immediately preceding the date of application.

Which is different from what you said.

I must have misread, my apologies. I guess it's time to take a break.

The "I don't understand while my home country is going to shit and why people can't afford houses anymore" post.

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> Taxes are pretty much always based on residency

IIRC, most countries with income tax tax by where income is earned (that is, where the work is done) by default, not residency, though many have tax treaties with each other that assign income earned by residents of a foreign country in the other treaty partner back to the country of residence.

Tax domicile laws are often in effect only after 180-something days in most developed countries. For example, imagine you are moving after 270 from e.g. Croatia with 12% tax rate to Germany with 42% tax rate. The 90 days you are making money in Germany can be still taxed in Croatia.