Estonian e-residency
e-estonia.com
Estonian e-residency
1–10 of 27 posts
Re: Estonian e-residency
#2I guess this is the smartest tax haven that went live.
Re: Estonian e-residency
#3Quite an elaborate tourist program:
https://e-estonia.com/e-residents/apply-2/
1. Fly to Estonia!
...
4. Wait for the results of your background check (max 14 days)
Meanwhile, explore our untouched forests and free-Wifi boasting cafés in historical old towns.
Re: Estonian e-residency
#4I guess this is the smartest tax haven that went live.
I don't think in itself it has any tax benefits. In fact by itself it has few benefits at all: it doesn't confer any kind of residency, legal right to work or conduct business in Estonia, etc.
What it does give you is a standardized ID and login system, which the Estonian government and major businesses (financial institutions, etc.) will be using in the future for identification and authentication. This will make it easier to conduct some kinds of business in Estonia as a non-resident, compared to many countries where it's difficult to get the proper credentials without being a resident (e.g. many Danish institutions use the CPR number and NemID [1] login system, but it's difficult to get one without being a Danish resident). The intent is to remove some of the procedural barriers to conducting business in Estonia, like "can't figure out how to get the bank to let me log in b/c I don't have an Estonian ID #" or "I don't know what to put down on this form that assumes I have an Estonian ID card and ID #". It doesn't give you any new legal rights in Estonia; it's just supposed to make it easier to do business in Estonia as a nonresident, if you're legally able to in the first place.
Re: Estonian e-residency
#5Quite an elaborate tourist program: https://e-estonia.com/e-residents/apply-2/ 1. Fly to Estonia! ... 4. Wait for the results of your background check (max 14 days) Meanwhile, explore our untouched forests and free-Wifi boasting cafés in historical old towns.
»As we move on to the next phase in spring 2015, it will be possible to apply through Estonian embassies and consular offices around the world.«
Re: Estonian e-residency
#6> E-residency is provided by the government of the Republic of Estonia, but does not bring physical residency or rights of entry to Estonia or EU. E-residency does not entail any residential or citizen rights and cannot be used as a physical identification card or travel document.
A hoax?
Re: Estonian e-residency
#7Previous HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8417062 (when the program was announced)
Re: Estonian e-residency
#8> E-residency is provided by the government of the Republic of Estonia, but does not bring physical residency or rights of entry to Estonia or EU. E-residency does not entail any residential or citizen rights and cannot be used as a physical identification card or travel document. A hoax?
Misleading branding maybe, but not quite a hoax. It's just a login system: you get an ID# and a way to authenticate to digital services in Estonia (both the government's, and anyone in the private sector that implements the system). It will be genuinely useful for nonresidents conducting business in Estonia who previously couldn't get Estonian digital credentials, b/c a lot of stuff is easier if you have them (filing online tax returns, logging in to online banking, etc.). But it doesn't come with legal rights, so the "residency" part is a bit misleading.
Re: Estonian e-residency
#9> E-residency is provided by the government of the Republic of Estonia, but does not bring physical residency or rights of entry to Estonia or EU. E-residency does not entail any residential or citizen rights and cannot be used as a physical identification card or travel document. A hoax?
Misleading branding maybe, but not quite a hoax. It's just a login system: you get an ID# and a way to authenticate to digital services in Estonia (both the government's, and anyone in the private sector that implements the system). It will be genuinely useful for nonresidents conducting business in Estonia who previously couldn't get Estonian digital credentials, b/c a lot of stuff is easier if you have them (filing…
To be fair I think the idea is to eventually keep adding rights to these certificates.
"we are moving towards the idea of a country without borders"
Or we could just keep the old system and destroy the planet because, by god, it's good fun for billionaires to hoard all the worlds resources.
Re: Estonian e-residency
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Misleading branding maybe, but not quite a hoax. It's just a login system: you get an ID# and a way to authenticate to digital services in Estonia (both the government's, and anyone in the private sector that implements the system). It will be genuinely useful for nonresidents conducting business in Estonia who previously couldn't get Estonian digital credentials, b/c a lot of stuff is easier if you have them (filing…
To be fair I think the idea is to eventually keep adding rights to these certificates. "we are moving towards the idea of a country without borders" I think the nation state, borders, the tax system, voting, what laws you work under and how you interact with the state should all be rethought as we move towards a post scarcity society[0]. Or we could just keep the old system and destroy the planet because, by god, it'…
That's the branding, yeah, but I doubt it's too serious. Literally anyone can sign up for an Estonian ID, with some basic background check, so in principle this "country without borders" includes billions of people, at least once they loosen the requirement to physically travel to Estonia (which currently puts a de-facto income/visa filter on it). I suspect Estonia will not grant those billions of people any "hard" rights, like the right to immigrate to Estonia, to work there if not already permitted to work there, to be considered Estonian for legal purposes if not already so considered, etc.
From what I can gather, what they really want is to make it easier for people to set up businesses in Estonia, for good old-fashioned countries-with-borders reasons: they want to improve the Estonian economy and the employment prospects of Estonia's real residents, as a government typically wants to do.