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Ask HN: What surprised you about Estonia e-Residency and running an Estonian OÜ?

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Re: Ask HN: What surprised you about Estonia e-Residency and running an Estonian OÜ?

#61

Post by rendx »

jwr wrote: post #49
leitasat wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russian citizen living abroad

For better or worse, our world has the concept of "citizenship". It is not ideal, but it is what we have settled on. You reap the benefits of your passport (citizenship), but you also bear responsibilities. It is possible to switch nationalities, and I would heartily encourage anyone whose conscience has trouble accepting what their country does to do so.

I sympathize with all Russian citizens living abroad. While citizenship is something you can get out of, it is a long process and circumstances may not easily allow it. I don't think it's fair to discriminate against Russian citizens without hearing their story, even the ones still living in Russia, for actions taken by their rogue government. Do US Americans really want to be held individually accountable for everything Trump does or will do?

I understand how comments like yours and other sibling comments will generate feelings of being treated unfairly: We do not choose our birth country. We do not know the individual's actions, we do not know their political stance, and it is not racist but still discriminatory to use their nationality against them. They're already punished enough by being associated with their government. That's at least how I see it.

Then again, it is probably due to EU wide legislation, so not something Estonia can do much about even if they wanted to. I hope they find emotional support to detach their individuality from how Russians (and Ukrainians!) are treated in general in the current dynamics. It's not their fault as individual, and I'm sorry that they became victims.

Re: Ask HN: What surprised you about Estonia e-Residency and running an Estonian OÜ?

#62

Post by broken-kebab »

leitasat wrote: post #21
8note wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you a russian speaking estonian? or russian citizen?

Russian citizen living abroad

Then you really can't say you has nothing to do with Russia. Citizenship is a very big thing in banking, and legal services. And it's certainly not about race. You could be ethnically Japanese for that matter, it's Russian passport which is the dealbreaker here.

Re: Ask HN: What surprised you about Estonia e-Residency and running an Estonian OÜ?

#64

Post by sph »

Gys wrote: post #10

Please beware: From: https://learn.e-resident.gov.ee/hc/en-gb/articles/3600007215... > Corporate tax residency > However, some countries have different rules for deciding if a company is tax resident. It is common that, in addition to the place of incorporation, the place of effective management can trigger tax residence. If you run your company from a country with regulations like this, then the company may end up h…

It is still amazing to me that so many people don't get this fact.

It doesn't matter where your company is incorporated, you'll be liable to pay the taxes where you live. And if you think the revenue service of your country is going to forget, you are guaranteed to have a very nasty surprise waiting for you when you least expect it.

The only way to more or less skirt this rule is to keep moving so you're technically never fiscally resident in any country (not even sure if it works), or move your personal fiscal residence to a tax haven like Monaco.

Re: Ask HN: What surprised you about Estonia e-Residency and running an Estonian OÜ?

#65

Post by jocaal »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #42
jocaal wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also estonian law doesn't recognize trusts, so if you want to save your assets for your children that's a problem.

I assume we are taking about a foreign trust and not an Estonian one. In what regard? When it comes to money laundering? Profit distributions?

No, I was under the impression that foundations must be established with a non profit goal in mind. I thought you cannot just give beneficiaries cash. I see I was mistaken and that private foundations allow you to treat the structure the same as a trust fund.

Re: Ask HN: What surprised you about Estonia e-Residency and running an Estonian OÜ?

#66

Post by dgellow »

m00dy wrote: post #18
gdotdesign wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same experience for me, it's been great! I never needed to visit since I could use Wise for banking. The only thing is that surprised me was the tax rate, when I created my Company the advertised rate was 20/80 but in reality it was ~25/75 and it increased since.

Wise is not a bank.

Wise isn't a bank but you can use Wise for banking operations (i.e you get bank accounts)

Re: Ask HN: What surprised you about Estonia e-Residency and running an Estonian OÜ?

#68

Post by KomoD »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #47
leitasat wrote: post #6

It was great until they turned racists and stopped me from using the service because of my nationality (Russia), even though neither me or the business had anything to do with Russia.

Oh I wonder why they don’t wanna do business with Russians. Could it be because Russians are threatening to invade, bomb and occupy Estonia? It’s your choice to decide to keep your Russian citizenship. Then you have to pay the price of being a Russian citizen.

> It’s your choice to decide to keep your Russian citizenship. Then you have to pay the price of being a Russian citizen.

It's not as black and white as "just renounce or pay the price". Renouncing your Russian citizenship is not an easy process, and they might even deny your request... It's not like cancelling a Netflix subscription.

And merely being Russian doesn't make someone a bad person or a supporter of Putin's regime.

Re: Ask HN: What surprised you about Estonia e-Residency and running an Estonian OÜ?

#69

Post by jwr »

rendx wrote: post #61
jwr wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For better or worse, our world has the concept of "citizenship". It is not ideal, but it is what we have settled on. You reap the benefits of your passport (citizenship), but you also bear responsibilities. It is possible to switch nationalities, and I would heartily encourage anyone whose conscience has trouble accepting what their country does to do so.

I sympathize with all Russian citizens living abroad. While citizenship is something you can get out of, it is a long process and circumstances may not easily allow it. I don't think it's fair to discriminate against Russian citizens without hearing their story, even the ones still living in Russia, for actions taken by their rogue government. Do US Americans really want to be held individually accountable for everyt…

There is a second point of view: imagine a Ukrainian living in a Western European country. They moved there because Russian missiles and bombs were falling on their heads and killing their family. They regularly send money to their country to defend against the agressor.

Their neighbor holds a Russian passport. He works at an IT company and earns a nice salary. It's a good life. He complains about being discriminated against. He "doesn't support the aggression". This "not supporting" does not take any material form, he doesn't send money anywhere nor perform any other actions. In the past, he has done absolutely jack squat about the rise of Putin to power (back when doing something was still possible), because he "is apolitical". When the war ends and things blow over, the neighbor will use his Russian passport to go back to Russia, live a good life there using money earned while abroad, and participate in rebuilding the economy, until the next Putin appears on the horizon. He will do absolutely jack squat about the next Putin, because he "is apolitical".

As you can see, it's all upside for the Russian neighbor.

I don't know about others, but something irks me about this common scenario. Sure, there are many subtleties and many ways in which life is complicated. But I see this scenario play out regularly and I can't help thinking that there should be some accountability for the passport you hold.

Re: Ask HN: What surprised you about Estonia e-Residency and running an Estonian OÜ?

#70

Post by Paradigm2020 »

jwr wrote: post #69
rendx wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sympathize with all Russian citizens living abroad. While citizenship is something you can get out of, it is a long process and circumstances may not easily allow it. I don't think it's fair to discriminate against Russian citizens without hearing their story, even the ones still living in Russia, for actions taken by their rogue government. Do US Americans really want to be held individually accountable for everyt…

There is a second point of view: imagine a Ukrainian living in a Western European country. They moved there because Russian missiles and bombs were falling on their heads and killing their family. They regularly send money to their country to defend against the agressor. Their neighbor holds a Russian passport. He works at an IT company and earns a nice salary. It's a good life. He complains about being discriminated…

Common scenario ?

The real question is what can a citizen do in a none democratic country... If you were Russian would you publically be protesting the war inside of Russia?

And all the people saying renounce citizenship, is your country gonna give him theirs ? Does Estonia offer free Estonian citizenship to Russians who abandon their's?

The real elephant in the room that I feel doesn't come up enough in these discussions is the fact that Israel is a democracy with freedom to protest etc and they are according to even holocaust survivors committing a genocide and according to mathematica and reports killing countless more civilians yet where is them being cut off from the banking system...

Or UAE in Sudan etc. Etc.

I dunno Russia is always the big boogieman seemingly...

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