Sounds silly, but feel free to become a corporation. Well, it's not quite as easy as I say. When I went remote I had to start my own contracting company. Because I live in Japan and (at the time) corporations were the default company configuration, my contracting company was formed as a corporation. There are lots of advantages:
- I can deduct the rent for my work space. In fact, theoretically in Japanese law I can even rent an entire building and offer myself the ability to rent living space for about $150 per month, with the company eating the rest as a loss. Probably you can do something similar in other countries (although I couldn't actually do it... because in order to rent a place I need a company and in order to form a company I need an address... so... well, it didn't quite work out).
- Internet, some of my utilities, etc, etc are expenses. Some furniture as well. Some of it has to be depreciated, though, so I don't get the benefit immediately.
- I can set my salary to anything I want. If it is beneficial for the company to make a profit and for me to make peanuts, then it's fine. If the opposite is beneficial, then it's fine.
- A fair number of expenses can be deducted by having a life insurance plan for employees, etc, etc.
On the downside:
- I have to submit all my accounts using dual entry accounting. The government gets stroppy if I make a mistake because they expect me to be a corporation.
- I have to submit year end accounting. Seriously, I have no time for this and employ a wonderful tax accountant to do this for me. My tax accountant saves me money, but getting a good one is like getting a good car mechanic -- it's hit or miss and can be very expensive if you choose the wrong person.
- I have to do the payroll, calculate withholding tax, pay fees and employment taxes. I have to do this every month and if I'm late I get a really big fine. Luckily my wife does this (seriously, I would never do this without my wife doing all the heavy lifting)
- I have stupid amounts of bank fees because I have to transfer money between 3 different banks just to pay myself. We actually use a sneaker net in one phase: I literally withdraw our payroll from the ATM and deposit in another ATM just to save $20 in transfer fees. Of course, I have to document all of this so the government knows I'm not fiddling anything.
In the end, it's an absolute PITA. I don't really recommend it. I think I save a little money this way over when I was being paid salary. It's really hard to tell, though. However, if you factor in all the work that I need to do, I think I'm being paid about $2 an hour for that effort. Or I should say my wife is. If I didn't have her, it would not be worth it at all.