Has Portugal killed the goose that lays its Golden eggs?

Article discussion
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I recently had a very interesting conversation with an ex-colleague with whom I had not spoken for almost 20 years. She moved to Madrid and transitioned from technology to real estate, a reminder of a similar change I made 15 years ago. She asked me whether I knew anything about the Spanish Golden Visa and started to describe her experience of convincing one of her friends, who had been thinking of purchasing in Portugal, to invest in Spain. I then asked her if she had explained to her friend the differences between the Spanish and Portuguese Golden Visas, including the multiple levels in Portugal versus single level in Spain, VAT which is an additional cost in Spain, and whether and how taxes are applied to worldwide income and assets. She hesitated, and then admitted that her friend had just received a very large Spanish tax bill. After another pause, the realization sank in and she said "He only invested in Spain because of me".

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://nomadgate.com/portugal-golden-visa-nhr-changes/
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Thanks for the detailed explanation and interpretation Luis.

However, I am not sure whether it is sensible for the changes to be applied to any applications from January 1, 2020, given that the vote hasn’t been made in the parliament, the areas in Lisbon and Porto haven’t been defined, and more importantly, the change is not retrospective (on the contrary that if the effective date in question is before the date of vote, it makes the word “retrospective” meaningless).

Regards,
Eddie Ng

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Eddie

What was initially being discussed was that the new law would not be retrospective to the last fiscal year. Now I hear that it may in fact exclude applications to the date of application of the new law, March 1. The message in the article is as much about the lack of certainty and the fact that circumstances change. This exchange is further evidence thereof. Regards