As an italian working in Bulgaria as an accountant, I think that Bulgaria is a nice solution too, I’ll give you Bulgaria’s prospect:
• Cost of setting up a company is < 900€
• Profits are taxed 10%, distributed profits 5%
• For wage it depends, but as administrator without salary you just have to pay like 65€ per month
IMO Bulgaria>Estonia, but let’s say that every est Europe country is a lot more favorable tax speaking
(I would recommend to move your personal residency too, as it’s very easy to be resident here without occurring in any problem)
You shouldn’t worry too much about the specifics of Estonian company itself. It’s legal. You won’t trigger CFC for example because the taxes aren’t super low. But if you set it up while permanently living in Belgium, the company basically becomes a Belgian company and follows Belgian tax laws and that well beats the purpose right.
If you do not reside in BE, then it just remains an estonian company with estonian taxes. But in this situation the main issue remains: paying yourself. To pay yourself somewhere you need to be a tax resident, but you need to find a country where the tax rates are good for you… and at same time you need to be careful that the country doesn’t push dual residence on your company.
If you are living in country X for long durations and work for your estonian company from there (>6m I guess?) , then the company can be assumed to be under “effective management” in country X and thus it becomes tax resident in country X. And then you actually have to pay tax in both countries: Permanent establishment and dual residence: An overview - E-Residency Hub
You can become tax resident somewhere under some schemes, without staying there for long durations. Then you can technically say the company is not being managed from the country where you are tax resident and then you are safe (it remains an estonian company).
I’m having trouble figuring out how to avoid this dual company residency while obtaining personal tax residency (so you can pay yourself income and taxes).
