Hi.
HMRC see everything as a tax event. Their system is cruel and unreasonable when it comes to crypto. The system is designed for taxation of assets that donāt go up and down 30% at a time and you can easily end up being assessed when they are up (eg. 2018) and having to pay when they are down. Ouch. I tried to go the honourable route and make a disclosure based on trust in fairness but I only got references to rules and an extremely painful bill.
Unsurprisingly, I now live in Portugal.
Iām taking it that you donāt do crypto as a business. To the best of my knowledge, and I am not an expert so this is just my personal experience, crypto investment activities for personal use are not taxed here and it is not required to declare the assets for tax purposes. (Iām not entirely sure about the requirement to declare yet). But, you will not be avoiding taxes. There arenāt any when not a business or professional activity. (May not be a permanent situation although Iām not aware of any plan to change things for 2021.
To become a tax resident in Portugal as a private individual EU citizen you must get yourself a PT bank account, a rental contract, go get a Certificate of Residence from the local Camara, take the Cert and ID to Financas office and get a tax number NIF. (You can first get a temporary NIF from Financas using your UK address.) Just about everything in Portugal seems to revolve around the NIF number.
Your Residence Cert is valid for 5 years and then you can apply for permanent residence. You can lose your resident status if, during the first 5 years, you are out of Portugal for more than a total of 6 months in any year.
Corona panicdemic now means that getting these things done is much more difficult. Portugal is pretty good at providing online options but not for everything. Expect to have to dig around for how it works whichever town you end up in. One of the things I most love about Portugal is that every town has its own way of doing things. I donāt think anyone will be able to give you watertight guidelines. Itās a case of doing as much research as you reasonably can before leaving the UK and then fitting the puzzle pieces into place when you arrive. I have found Portugese people to be fantastic, friendly, helpful, unhesitating in breaking into fluent English and they have huge amounts of common sense which means that all problems can be resolved.
And HMRC do have their ways to decide you are still a UK resident even when you are a PT resident. Depends on circumstances but spend more than 15 days in the UK in the first year after taking up Portugese residence, for example, and you could be classed as a UK resident. Itās all good, clean fun.
Then thereās Brexit. If you are an EU passport holder, you will be ok but things are already much more difficult for British passport holders wanting to take up residence here.
Good look with whatever you decide. For me, residence in Portugal is a no brainer. Best move I ever made.
Hey that was an amazing answer!!!
Thank you soooo much!!
I think Portugal would be a great move, Iāve Italian Passport, I might get the British one (Iāve been here for 20 years, and Iāve got the permanent residency, but Brexit is turning things upside down) + Iām trading crypto, itās not my main business, although it could be, but itās kind of a spare time hobby that grows exponentially.
For Tax etc Iām using Koinly, so itās telling me how much tax Iāll have to pay, and my teachers were always stressing on taking a 25% off profits for taxes, so Iāve got the money for it. But obviously some places are more Crypto friendly,
So far Portugal wins.
Iāve been there several times, and the quietness, the light, the weather, the food and the people are awesome.
So, thanks a lot for your advice. I think Iāll keep researching, Iāll have to pay taxes this year anyway, so hopefully by April, and after Brexit and hopefully Covid-19, Iāll have a better idea of how to do the move.
Once again, thanks a lot!
Diego