Hi. I’m Fernando, just another computer geek.
This blog is all about a small (or huge) experiment and a big change in my lifestyle, and I decided I will share it with everyone.

You might want to read my FIRST POST for some context about what is this all about…

WHAT

I decided to “detach” from any high-tax country as my residence, since it doesn’t make any sense for someone traveling as much as I’ve been doing for the last two years. After some research, seems like the best solution for me is to actually register my activity in a country with low income taxes, or even better, no taxes at all (yes, they exist). Second, in order not to be considered resident in any other country, I have to follow different thresholds for how many days I can stay there before not being only a visitor anymore. As far as I am not a resident, which means applying and being entitled for benefits (like social security and retirement), I don’t need to contribute with taxes (like IRS/VAT). I’m mostly inclined for Hong-Kong or Seychelles. Both of them have no taxes at all as far as you don’t trade with their own national companies (and still the tax is ridiculous low). Seychelles will probably win, since apart from that, there’s no need for yearly declaration of profits, I repeat, no waste-of-time extra book-keeping and paperwork. Since the reason for this change is not money, but time (which my most valuable asset and should be everyone’s), this is a huge plus.

WHAT?

An important point is that I am not trying to go illegal or do anything that can get me trouble. I am investing a lot on research, meeting with lawyers and trustees about the best solutions as well as the companies that take care of all the paperwork (mostly law firms) and apparently it’s way simpler than I ever could imagine. I am not looking for those paranoid privacy packages that seem to be more common for finance or dodgy businesses (well, finance and all the speculation crap fits in that “dodgy biz” category like a glove, anyway). It will be just a normal incorporation of a normal company, under my name, everything proper, in a different normal country. Sure, high-taxed countries love to associate the term offshore with something evil, usually money laundering, and recently, even more convenient, terrorism. The correct word for that is: bullshit. Will they ever associate the fact that the more they raise taxes, more companies and individuals get tired of being ripped-off and just set their nest somewhere else? Anyway, I am sure they will just keep investing more in propaganda and pressure.

WHY

All this was triggered by a recent need to slow down with my work, thanks to a very useful burnout that was very efficient as a wake-up call, impossible otherwise, since I was close to having no social life and my free time was something that didn’t exist for a while. I was getting way too far with my insane workload, not really as a need but because I really love my job and kept going (to an insanely extent). I have nothing against laws and taxes, and after living and working in Switzerland for more than 7 years, I totally appreciate the fact that things actually work as they should thanks to all the strict rules of the game (specially impressive for me, coming from a country where nothing works exactly due to the lack of all that: Portugal). The point is that I am also aware that for a sole trader service provider like me (I am a software developer and designer by the way), taxes can go a bit insane if I don’t keep surrounding myself with depreciating assets, some that I will use twice or so, just to justify tax deductions and not feeling like I was mugged at a certain part of every year. As much as I love gadgets and computer stuff, that’s exactly what is surrounding me way too much: STUFF. Sure, money from taxes goes to a lot of fair places, but it also goes to a lot of unfair ones, and with my decision I can actually decide which causes to support with my own spare money, as I don’t really need some institution to manage and decide that for me, specially if only a few dimes go for genuine beneficial causes and a massive amount goes to support politics luxury extras (hey, they earn enough to pay for them themselves), people abusing welfare (there’s way too much everywhere, and in Switzerland it’s almost a joke), “supporting” drug addicts and the list could go over and over and it would be hard for the “good list” to offset this one.

WHERE

The scribble below will be more or less the plan for the countries I will be visiting and staying there for 2 or 3 months (which will remain somehow flexible every year, both cities and time). I never rented an office in Geneva, and I’m completely useless working from my home office (even things like doing the dishes and cleaning or fixing things start being attractive tasks all of a sudden). My usual and most productive offices seem to be Starbucks and other nice coffee shops (even if I don’t drink coffee, only tea), not only in Geneva but everywhere. I keep finding a few other interesting “offices” all the time. I also decided that most of my traveling will be done by train. I am fed-off with airports (it’s not even the flying part, it’s airports themselves), and it gets worst and worst with every new “regulation”. That’s definitely the place where I obtain my records of stress levels, and being surrounded with everyone else’s stress doesn’t help at all. And I don’t really know any one with a creative related job that needs any kind of stress. Yes, by flying I arrive somewhere a lot earlier, but useless if not destructive regarding my job. The other reason, and the most important one, is that I found out several years ago that train trips inspire me, a lot, and that is a great contribution to my work quality, and responsible for most of the good ideas I had so far. The usual fly-here-and-there-and-do-not-stop-working-for-a-second is not extremely useful at all, regarding creativity. That’s why for most conferences around Europe in the last 2 years I’ve been traveling by train. And I will keep doing it, including throwing in a trans-siberian trip to China, as can be seen in my plan.

Clients will benefit a lot from my decision, first because of the creativity reasons, as I could confirm several times how much I benefit from feeding my mind instead of stressing, and changing the scenario around me a few times helps a lot. One of my usual “creative hide-outs” is the Swiss Alps, where I actually run my own conference every year, and where I plan now to stay a few months per year, in Stechelberg (sorry Geneva, you’ve just been betrayed). Continuing with benefits for clients (apart from the ones for myself), I can charge a lot less considering I am not being ripped-off by a lot of taxes and taxes of taxes and whatsoever (possible taxes apply over that whatsoever). Add to the that the fact that I am renouncing benefits, so, cutting all the expenses associated with those “benefits”. I never really understood the concept of “insurances” (any of them, not just the conveniently mandatory by law): you pay to be sure that you have money there if something happens, but if that something happens, there’s first a lot of excuses to see if their help can be ruled out, and then you still have to pay a minimum cover, and, the best part, then your fee is raised so you pay back for what you needed… Anyway, ahead: Something that will allow me to cut on my hourly rate is the fact that as a tourist I am treated better (financially too) than a resident, and won’t be ripped-off with the usual mandatory insurances for all the rental associated fees, as well as the usual ones for having a car or anything else (and some for not having this or that). And considering some of the countries where I am going to live are insanely cheap, I can actually get a better value for my earned money. Sure, one of the “benefits” I renounce is retirement. Guess what: I can be hit by a truck tomorrow, and I definitely prefer to have some mini-retirements every once in a while, not wait for money that supposedly is there when I am old, possibly sick or at least with way less mobility and not so eager to go everywhere. And chances are that I save more money this way. In the end, apart from the quality of my work benefiting a lot, which is good also for clients (even if I will be dedicating a lot more time to my own projects as well as teaching with my workshops). Considering I am never in Geneva lately and most meetings are Skype or phone based, and most stuff decided with emails, nothing in respect to that will be much different to anyone. Apart from that, if I accept some really interesting project, I might move to the client’s country for a while as an added benefit. And as a really interesting and ingenious project I mean exactly that, so, if you are the kind of client with the usual “spectacular” brochure-website/app idea in your mind, please hire that nephew or friend of your neighbor that can do it for 100 USD, because chances are that you were going to mention that guy anyway along the project, specially at budget (or payment) time and we would end up not agreeing a lot with each other. Otherwise, you are welcome to contact me, and for sure, I can contribute with the ideas and creativity part, unless you are expecting that to be free as some clients seem to do (can you believe that?).

ENOUGH

Ok, this text is getting insanely long so I should wrap it up: Until end of this year I have lots of STUFF to get rid of, since I want to make all my belongings and office fit in a travel case. There’s no point of making this decision and keep an apartment to have STUFF on it. My house in Portugal is already for sale, car was just sold and I will donate a lot of my stuff like piles of technical books and selling a shit-load (sorry, that’s the correct term here) of gadgets, big and small, cheap and expensive that I kept accumulating, some used once or twice, for the sake of “investing” in these to lower tax burden with deductions. Sure, there will be also a lot of paperwork to wrap up everything in here, but in the middle of all this, I am pretty sure that I will love to get rid of all the stuff, because that’s exactly what it is: stuff, things. This almost starts to sound spiritual, but not being exactly materialistic or capitalist (at all), or even religious, I always wanted to get rid of everything one day and just have the essentials (my laptop, clothes and a few travel gadgets of course) and contributing to everywhere I go by buying local goods and services there). You can contribute for making this stuff disappear since I am listing all on the dedicated “STUFF!” page on the menu on top. If you are an institution that would benefit from any of these things, let me know, as I will donate some of these.

I am going to share everything about going “fiscal nomad” or whatever other name on this blog: Info about every step involving entities to contact and companies who take care of most of the work, and later posts and pictures (and videos) about each trip and place as well as the details on living and working from there. And obviously some gadget reviews. Every post and page here is opened to opinions and advice, I am not an expert on this (yet) and will find out my way, but any help is of course welcomed. I also expect for sure a lot of trolling in the comments, since this is a subject that will get some people to try to bite my ass.

LONG STORY SHORT

I am about to leave Switzerland, where I lived and worked for the last 7 years, and built a nice career and surrounded myself with stuff. I will be making wherever in the world my office, which is not that different from where it has been for the last two years, except for the fact that I will really get rid of all that stuff to have only the essentials around me, renouncing also all benefits attached to being a resident in any country as well as a lot of nonsense ties and obligations as a resident. I want to share all the steps on this and listen to every opinion and advice. I am going to incorporate offshore, but before that triggers some flag in most “automatic people”, this is not about shielding myself and going paranoid with identity or privacy for doing some dodgy business. If you are looking for that you better go search some blog on trading and fund management, since I will just be doing my work (as a software developer and designer) both for client projects and my own ideas, that keep being piled inside an imaginary drawer, and burned to ashes (also imaginary) every time the same idea or a similar one enough to void the purpose of mine appears implemented, usually a few years after mine is almost forgotten at the bottom of that same drawer. A few of those ideas I end up using on client projects so the ideas don’t feel so much of a waste, to have the client making money with them and saying goodbye afterwards (both the client, the money and the idea). So, this is all about ideas, and making them happen. Thank you for reading this insanely long page (unless you cheated and only went trough this bold section). You are welcome to follow the RSS feed or subscribe by email or share by using the Like/Tweet buttons on the header. Links to my social presence as well as my website and portfolio (that will be built a bit more, now that I created some time finally and have a ton of past projects to throw there). See you …wherever!