The Big 4 (e.g. pwc) have good tax primers. If they are too unpleasant, I would search for webinars on YouTube but adjust for bias—speakers are usually trying to make money of you, and might push for high-commission products without mentioning others; people who claim to be unbiased might just be trying to make a consultant fee from you AND pushing for a country that pays him the highest commission at the same time. In short, treat them all like salespeople, never your fiduciary.
By “opportunity cost”, I was comparing (a) unwinding my investment the first opportunity I have, vs. (b) keeping it for another 7 years (the 3 years I already spent are sunk cost; assuming another year to receive my 1st GV card + 5 years + 1 year for GV PR processing)
I understand completely. The reason I won’t move to PT full time is the mess it creates with certain types of US-derived investment income. Without going into detail, I had advice (from a Big 4) that I would likely need to go to court in Portugal every year to claw some of our taxes back because of discrepancies between how taxes are assessed and what we are actually obliged to pay, largely caused by wording in the tax treaty that has been routinely misinterpreted by the AT…
Unfortunately every jurisdiction has trade-offs when it comes to tax residency. And tax regimes are even more likely than immigration rules to shift under your feet with little warning. Europe is not the place to move expecting long term tax relief, especially compared to HK!
My point was that the citizenship has value because if I don’t like Portugal’s tax policy, I can always move to one of the dozens of other countries in the EU.
Getting the PR should be possible without triggering tax residency, but it doesn’t have any value as a Plan A or a Plan B if actually going to live in the country creates a tax nightmare.
In general, unless you qualify for IFICI, which is much more difficult and risky than the original NHR, you’ll be paying high taxes on worldwide capital gains on your other investments.
To me this is not just disadvantageous, but also unfair. If someone grows up in a socialist country, receives free education, generous family leave, subsidized health care, etc. their whole life, and becomes wealthy on the back of those benefits, then maybe it’s fair for the government to tax the gains resulting from those benefits. But for me earning and holding money elsewhere without the benefit of any of that, the moment I step foot a new country, that government starts taking my money they had nothing to do with?
Yes, with the new 15 year timeline, the cost of reaching citizenship (assuming no residency requirement is added within the next 15 years in order to qualify for citizenship) has risen dramatically. In particular - a few more years of holding an investment with high expense ratios, the high cost of applying for the GV PR once or twice, 7 days/year for perhaps another 7 years of trips to/stays in Portugal, maybe another 10k in legal fees, etc. Not worth it any longer for me.
Latvia also doesn’t allow dual citizenship. But if you just want a Golden Visa to use as a super long lasting Schengen Visa, you don’t have to learn the language, do you?
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