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Barbados introduces plan to allow visitors to work remotely there for a year

money.yahoo.com

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Re: Barbados introduces plan to allow visitors to work remotely there for a year

#31
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the other poster says you continue to pay income tax in your home country and you're also forbidden from working for any Barbados company since they don't want people taking local jobs. However this may have tax consequences in your home country. I'm from the UK and if you spend more than 180(?) days abroad in a tax year you become non-resident which has some implications. You'll need to consult an accountant I gu…

But there is no real reason for UK to actively track residents and tell them "you know what, we discovered that you should pay your money to another country, not us". What is more reasonable is that the third country would symay "hey buddy maybe you should be paying your taxes here not in UK" but in this case Barbados said they wouldn't

Yep, most people get this rule the wrong way around. The 183 day rule is a sufficient (but not necessary) condition to be considered tax resident in most countries. It does not automatically make you non resident in your home country and if you don't actively communicate to your home country that you moved abroad it all comes down to the existing double taxation agreement between the two countries.

Re: Barbados introduces plan to allow visitors to work remotely there for a year

#32
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other commenters have address your questions, but what I will add is that if you stayed the full 12 months (Or really, 330 days) then you apply for FEIE and won't have to pay federal income tax as a US citizen.

This isn't exactly true. You only get the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion if you actually have foreign earned income. Just can't just live abroad and pretend your income is foreign earned. There IRS defines what is and isn't foreign earned income. If you move to Barbados and just keep doing the same job you were doing in the US, then it almost certainly isn't foreign earned income.

That is what the IRS (and most tax offices in the world, such as the British HMRC or the Italian AdE) defines as "foreign source income" since the work is literally being carried out abroad. It also includes capital gains and interests arising abroad of course.

Re: Barbados introduces plan to allow visitors to work remotely there for a year

#33
post #21

What’s the usual rent for a family home there?

Looking at https://www.terracaribbean.com/Barbados/For-Rent/ just before it went down (I guess others are interested too) the first six prices for 1-bedroom houses/apartments are US$500, US$600, US$625, US$725, US$800, US$800.

Re: Barbados introduces plan to allow visitors to work remotely there for a year

#34
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm from the UK and if you spend more than 180(?) days abroad in a tax year you become non-resident which has some implications This isn’t quite accurate. There are other tests that come into play, including whether you own a house in the UK, and how long you spent outside the UK for the rest of the year (and the preceding years). Basically if you live in the UK, then spend 180 days (or even a whole year) outside t…

"worth paying for tax advice" I knew someone who, through their employer, got tax advice from one of the big name accounting firms that turned out to be completely wrong - leaving them liable for tax both in the UK and in the country they had travelled to. It all got sorted out in the end but took a long time and was he was rather unhappy with the whole thing, as you can probably imagine.

Yeah it's also worth doing your research and seeing if it matches what the advisor is telling you

"you owe/doesn't owe this because A, B, C" is the answer you should be looking for, they might give general advice but they might not know 100% about some specific situations

Note: I'm not saying "you can deal with this by yourself", I'm saying "double checking is a good idea"

Re: Barbados introduces plan to allow visitors to work remotely there for a year

#35
post #7
post #2

Does this apply to U.S. passport holders only? If not, what about taxes? If you spend 12 months in Barbados, will you have to pay your taxes there?

If you're not a US citizen, you won't have to pay income at all due to tax residency rules. only the US is brazen enough to charge non-resident citizens income tax

It's the residency rules that matter here.

For an Australia, you pay income tax if you're a resident for taxation purposes. For an Australian Citizen to answer that they're not a resident for taxation purposes is complicated and depends in part on the type of Visa you have.

Last I looked, for me, as an Australian citizen, to not have to pay tax would mean getting a permanent Visa in another country and being resident in that country. They specifically excluded time-limited visas, even if you can get them renewed automatically.

It means travelling around the world, even for years at a time, I still need to account for my income and lodge tax returns in Australia. The one upside is getting credit for income taxes paid in another country.

I believe a similar situation also applies to Canadian citizens, as a few former Canadian colleagues in Australia had to go through a whole process of getting their Australian taxation recognised in Canada.

Re: Barbados introduces plan to allow visitors to work remotely there for a year

#37
This is really interesting - I wonder if, in our post-COVID world, we'll see other countries doing the same.

I'm trying to see any disadvantages for countries that do this, but the only thing I came up with is the possibility of distorting local rental prices. But presumably if enough countries offered such a visa, applicants would be spread over those countries, causing less distortion.

Re: Barbados introduces plan to allow visitors to work remotely there for a year

#38

Interesting how , in a remote work world, having a passport is a burden . There might be a demand for an "airbnb for passports" in the future

Being able to use someone else's passport....is not now and even more so in the future will never be a thing. But getting passports from more jurisdictions and choosing which to present- that is and will be even more of a thing.

Re: Barbados introduces plan to allow visitors to work remotely there for a year

#39

Interesting how , in a remote work world, having a passport is a burden . There might be a demand for an "airbnb for passports" in the future

Being able to use someone else's passport....is not now and even more so in the future will never be a thing. But getting passports from more jurisdictions and choosing which to present- that is and will be even more of a thing.

yeah , but having citizens vet their replacements might convince governments that they can trust to the newcomers.

Re: Barbados introduces plan to allow visitors to work remotely there for a year

#40
post #37

This is really interesting - I wonder if, in our post-COVID world, we'll see other countries doing the same. I'm trying to see any disadvantages for countries that do this, but the only thing I came up with is the possibility of distorting local rental prices. But presumably if enough countries offered such a visa, applicants would be spread over those countries, causing less distortion.

this will become a trend among touristy countries, because the slump in tourism will last for many years (and imho will permanently alter the market)
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