Spain digital nomad visa

[Bluenose]

The problem is with the 'why' is everyone's situation is going to be different.

There is a man, he works in central london, he has a missus and two kids well under 4
He pays 53% tax inside IR35
His mortgage is 3,000pm+bills for a 3 bed terrace
Hello 350pm Gas/Leccy Bill !
His childcare bill is 1450pm x 2 = 2900pm
It's not worth using the National Health or, the train service or, anything else for that matter.

Not much change even out of 250k per year joint income.

In Spain.

You can buy a 5 bedroom villa with a swimming pool for 250k
If you move to the right place you won't need to heat your home
Your childcare bill is capped at 350 euros per child
Your tax bill is 24% flat rate
If the kids moan, buy them a horse....each, if the missus moans, get a third child on the go, a dior bag and a city bolt hole for long weekends with her mother
Get depressed? Buy a 458 Spyder and drive it with the roof down, every day, until it breaks
After 5 years, get an EU passport and sod off somewhere else, stay or, move to the Algarve and pay 20% tax.

[WTFH]

The problem is with the 'why' is everyone's situation is going to be different.

There is a man, he works in central london, he has a missus and two kids well under 4
He pays 53% tax inside IR35
His mortgage is 3,000pm+bills for a 3 bed terrace
Hello 350pm Gas/Leccy Bill !
His childcare bill is 1450pm x 2 = 2900pm
It's not worth using the National Health or, the train service or, anything else for that matter.

Not much change even out of 250k per year joint income.

In Spain.

You can buy a 5 bedroom villa with a swimming pool for 250k
If you move to the right place you won't need to heat your home
Your childcare bill is capped at 350 euros per child
Your tax bill is 24% flat rate
If the kids moan, buy them a horse....each, if the missus moans, get a third child on the go, a dior bag and a city bolt hole for long weekends with her mother
Get depressed? Buy a 458 Spyder and drive it with the roof down, every day, until it breaks
After 5 years, get an EU passport and sod off somewhere else, stay or, move to the Algarve and pay 20% tax.

If he has a wife and kids but cares more about money than them (and mismanages his finances as badly as you described), is it not worth costing up a divorce instead of horses, Dior, other houses, etc, etc.

[oliverson]

The problem is with the 'why' is everyone's situation is going to be different.

There is a man, he works in central london, he has a missus and two kids well under 4
He pays 53% tax inside IR35
His mortgage is 3,000pm+bills for a 3 bed terrace
Hello 350pm Gas/Leccy Bill !
His childcare bill is 1450pm x 2 = 2900pm
It's not worth using the National Health or, the train service or, anything else for that matter.

Not much change even out of 250k per year joint income.

In Spain.

You can buy a 5 bedroom villa with a swimming pool for 250k
If you move to the right place you won't need to heat your home
Your childcare bill is capped at 350 euros per child
Your tax bill is 24% flat rate
If the kids moan, buy them a horse....each, if the missus moans, get a third child on the go, a dior bag and a city bolt hole for long weekends with her mother
Get depressed? Buy a 458 Spyder and drive it with the roof down, every day, until it breaks
After 5 years, get an EU passport and sod off somewhere else, stay or, move to the Algarve and pay 20% tax.

I've had my place in Spain - Malaga, for over 17 years and let me assure you that you most certainly DO need to heat your home in the winter. Buildings out there are designed to keep cool, our has marble flooring throughout, marble on the bathroom / en-suite walls. Zero insulation. It may not be as cold here in the winter but you need the heating on. Similar story in the summer. On with the air-conditioning and that's not cheap either.

You can buy a 5 bedroom detached house in the North of England for £ 250k still.

I struggle with this notion of having a couple of children, only to stick them in day care all day and at that kind of cost. No wonder kids grow up these days screwed up.

[PCTNN]

The problem is with the 'why' is everyone's situation is going to be different.

There is a man, he works in central london, he has a missus and two kids well under 4
He pays 53% tax inside IR35
His mortgage is 3,000pm+bills for a 3 bed terrace
Hello 350pm Gas/Leccy Bill !
His childcare bill is 1450pm x 2 = 2900pm
It's not worth using the National Health or, the train service or, anything else for that matter.

Not much change even out of 250k per year joint income.

In Spain.

You can buy a 5 bedroom villa with a swimming pool for 250k
If you move to the right place you won't need to heat your home
Your childcare bill is capped at 350 euros per child
Your tax bill is 24% flat rate
If the kids moan, buy them a horse....each, if the missus moans, get a third child on the go, a dior bag and a city bolt hole for long weekends with her mother
Get depressed? Buy a 458 Spyder and drive it with the roof down, every day, until it breaks
After 5 years, get an EU passport and sod off somewhere else, stay or, move to the Algarve and pay 20% tax.

In this scenario I normally would expect from you to know how things work in the UK and only write bulltulip about how things work in Spain. BUT in this case you don't even seem to have a clue about how things work here in the UK. Every single thing you wrote is wrong.

[Bluenose]

and that's the problem with the 'why', its subjective.

it's better to discuss and help on the 'how'.

yes, kids shouldn't be in day care five days a week so you can afford a house in central London but they are and for many it's the only way to afford one.

answer is to leave the rat race and spend less, get taxed less and work less so the kids don't need to be in daycare so much.

don't like buying stuff? (this is the contractor forum remember) one parent can work part time instead and spend more time with the kids.

want to be happier? work four days a week. take the kids to the beach every day, take them to the park every day in t shirt and shorts. take up surfing with the kids, go driving in near empty roads.

don't want the heating on, ever? move to Las Palmas.

want to be stuck in the house for five months of the year as the weather is tulipe? move to a city in the north of England and spend your days moaning about cars being set fire in your street, read the horrors in the local paper but yay 250k house.

walked around in Bury, Oldham, Salford, Rochdale, Bradford, Bolton town centres recently and thought 'mmm well this is all going in the right direction for me, id love to relocate my family here, didn't know it was so nice these days.' ?
think Keir Starmer is going to sort this disaster zone of a country out and Brexit is going to go great, contractors will be well looked after by HMRC, the kids are going to have a wonderful life here?! superb! no need to even read this thread at all, you are all sorted

[jamesbrown]

Again, there's a strong whiff of who are you trying to convince, Bluenose?

[DigitalUser]

I started this thread but I've completely written the idea off now some of the details have emerged, such as needing to be working for a startup of < 5 years, even then the tax rate isn't 15% for you personally, more like 24%, so despite it being quite easy for me, having a 100% remote role, property already in Spain, a bank account and an NIE number, I just don't see any meaningful tax savings. I also know how conniving the Spanish authorities can be and don't trust them one bit. And maybe I'm being optimistic but I feel the tax situation may improve in the UK as the GE approaches and there' s not a chance in hell the Tories will remain in power the way things are. Not that they're a 'Tory' party in the truest sense of the word. ANY sense of the word actually.

Are you able to share the source of the details? I'm less bothered about the tax regime, more the practical details of who you can work for e.g. a startup of < 5 years

[DigitalUser]

Broadly agree, although I think your family could be perfectly aligned and want to move overseas - there's no reason it cannot be an opportunity for them too - and you can hardly organise your life around your friends as they will make their own choices. But I agree that it involves massive upheaval for all concerned, so tax is far down the list of sensible motivations (yet strangely high on the list for a lot of folks here, perhaps because they haven't thought it through).

We're in this boat - as a family we've talked about moving overseas for some time. Brexit hamstrung that to a certain degree until this visa came along. Any tax benefits are, whilst incidental and welcome, not the motivation we'd up sticks for.

This thread seems to have gone wildly off topic, which is a shame as I'm sure there are a few folks in the forum with a genuine interest in how this visa comes into effect.

[dsc]

[...]
So, not very appealing to the average uk contractor

Yes, considering your average uk contractor is a permie

[lecyclist]

This thread seems to have gone wildly off topic, which is a shame as I'm sure there are a few folks in the forum with a genuine interest in how this visa comes into effect.

Indeed. Better to rename it "The contractoruk clique confirmation bias thread".

For those interested, better to move to one of the other Digital Nomad forums for updates instead.