Bulgaria Freelance Taxes: Detailed Breakdown
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Bulgaria Freelance Taxes: Detailed Breakdown
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Re: Bulgaria Freelance Taxes: Detailed Breakdown
#2I am 100% sure long term residents also pay health insurance. Are you an EU citizen?
Re: Bulgaria Freelance Taxes: Detailed Breakdown
#3I am 100% sure long term residents also pay health insurance. Are you an EU citizen?
I'm not an EU citizen, no. And while I was living there as a long-term resident, I didn't pay 8% health insurance.
Perhaps it's indeed different for EU citizens, I'm not sure. I should probably mention it there.
Re: Bulgaria Freelance Taxes: Detailed Breakdown
#4I am 100% sure long term residents also pay health insurance. Are you an EU citizen?
I'm not an EU citizen, no. And while I was living there as a long-term resident, I didn't pay 8% health insurance. Perhaps it's indeed different for EU citizens, I'm not sure. I should probably mention it there.
The question is - Do you have to? You may have not paid it but that doesn’t tell if one has to.
Re: Bulgaria Freelance Taxes: Detailed Breakdown
#5Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not an EU citizen, no. And while I was living there as a long-term resident, I didn't pay 8% health insurance. Perhaps it's indeed different for EU citizens, I'm not sure. I should probably mention it there.
The question is - Do you have to? You may have not paid it but that doesn’t tell if one has to.
This was confirmed by at least two reputable accountants, so yeah, I'm 100% sure I didn't have to pay 8% health insurance while being a long term resident (and not an EU citizen).
Actually, I _did_ pay some health insurance, but it had nothing to do with the business and it wasn't 8% or anything like that. It's like the same kind of health insurance that even tourists have to get.
Re: Bulgaria Freelance Taxes: Detailed Breakdown
#6Similar as in Poland:
1. Long-term remote contracting as software engineers is legal. No need to worry about being forced into being employee.
2. Regressive taxation at very low level (e.g. recently in Poland you can opt-in for 12.5% taxation of revenue).
Re: Bulgaria Freelance Taxes: Detailed Breakdown
#7Considering moving in Bulgaria after this, thanks!
My Freelance taxes/social sec/retirement tax in Italy is on average 76% on a total of 80k eur average gross annual income (98th income percentile).
Re: Bulgaria Freelance Taxes: Detailed Breakdown
#8Considering moving in Bulgaria after this, thanks! My Freelance taxes/social sec/retirement tax in Italy is on average 76% on a total of 80k eur average gross annual income (98th income percentile).
Do you mean you'll only make 19.2k net from 80k gross? That sounds like an awful amount of taxes. I'm from Austria and here it's ~27% for social security and income tax is ranging from 0% to 55%. From 80k gross you would make around 42k net (Calculated without any tax benefits).
Re: Bulgaria Freelance Taxes: Detailed Breakdown
#9Keep in mind that Bulgaria has just elected a reformist parliament for the first time in more than 10 years. Maybe wait a year or two before buying a one-way ticket as the government may raise taxes, especially on the unaffected by the anti-COVID measures. Or they could lower taxes even more if they manage to get on top of the rampant tax evasion and grey economy (one can hope).
Also there are other small things to consider:
* Healthcare in Bulgaria is severely underfunded and understaffed. Not only that, but the incentive system for hospitals is currently IMO completely broken, as they get paid per patient i.e. more sick people = more pay, not more healthy people. My current belief is that you need to live in a large city if you want to have a chance to survive an incident or a heart attack/stroke. Source: trust me, I live here, have lost several family members due to poor healthcare, and have had one receiving incompetent treatment so the hospital can receive more money from health insurance.
* Same goes for childcare/education.
* * There is currently a severe deficit of kindergartens in the large cities -- Sofia (~10k children left out), Plovdiv, Varna and Burgas.
* * Bulgarian public education has been in a freefall for the last 10 years as evidenced by dropping results in state exams and international studies (https://gpseducation.oecd.org/CountryProfile?primaryCountry=...). Private schooling is available in large cities and unsurprisingly is limited. Take into account potential need of home-schooling if you plan to start a family here.
* The public institutions are (currently) not working or corrupt. There are issues with the judicial system, the prosecution, the police, etc. Tl; dr: better hope you won't have to deal with those before major reforms and definitely don't rely on having your rights protected by them. You are on your own here.
Do not be under the illusion that Bulgaria is just like $western_european_country but with less taxes and cheaper housing. Everything comes at a price. You will not find many things you take for granted in your home country here.
Re: Bulgaria Freelance Taxes: Detailed Breakdown
#10Considering moving in Bulgaria after this, thanks! My Freelance taxes/social sec/retirement tax in Italy is on average 76% on a total of 80k eur average gross annual income (98th income percentile).
Do you mean you'll only make 19.2k net from 80k gross? That sounds like an awful amount of taxes. I'm from Austria and here it's ~27% for social security and income tax is ranging from 0% to 55%. From 80k gross you would make around 42k net (Calculated without any tax benefits).
He is probably adding VAT to his income tax rates, which imo is not correct.