Freelance Travelling
- Started
- Last post
- 18 Responses
- statik
Hi qbn'rs,
I wonder if you can shed any light on this situation.
I'm from the UK originally, left the UK in march last year, been travelling since then and have started freelancing for clients in US and other areas.
I wanted to 'go legit' with the freelance and so enquired with the HMRC in UK to see if I need to register for tax, as I'm not in the uk, nor am I planning to go back soon. The guy said, there's no point in registering here, you're not liable to pay tax here, you're status is now non-resident (as I haven't been back in a good while)..I haven't earned above the 'tax' threshold to declare (uk anyway) but I still wanted to stay on the legal side...
So my question is; Surely I have to pay taxes on my earnings, but to which country and how? I'll be moving on shortly from my current location, I'm not resident here either, so where or how do I pay taxes if I keep travelling?
Is this some kind of loop hole, if I keep travelling and freelancing, I dont pay taxes?
Surely some country/government entity needs to be aware of me working for myself...but there's no point in registering in a specific country if I'm moving on...
lot of info here but I'm baffled, how do I become self employed, whilst travelling, and who do I register with..??
Anyone??
Have a familiar story, or know where i can get info?
your help is greatly appreciated..cheers
- ********0
keep travelling and working freelance without register anywhere. You will get tired of do both things someday and you will stay in some place you liked :)
- statik0
Cheers Juan, let's hope not :)
What if I earned 1 million...surley someone would need to know? no?
- naaahdoesnotexist
- who knows, maybe statik is an awesome designer! :)********
- lets just say design is one way if bringing in the cash, there are many others ;)statik
- lol!********
- prostitutes don't pay tax on it, and they're normally residents. Do what you do, pay no one.ipissexcellence
- ********0
No if you just use the money to live and you dont buy houses, expensive cars, etc. Why you will buy a house if you are travelling?
- statik0
Good point... I hope I don't get stuck with some huge fine in years to come...stay positive I guess !!
- ********0
yeah, enjoy while you can. life is short, don´t worry about stupid taxes.
- statik0
sounds good to me, as long as I can say 'Juan made me do it :) '
- stay 100 miles away from any boarder.akrokdesign
- ?statik
- I'm worried nowstatik
- boarder patrol.akrokdesign
- check points.akrokdesign
- Especially Tony Hawk.DaveO
- ********0
yea, you can do that, go ahead! hahaha
- statik0
Cheers, Juan.
Any more views on my situation? I know it's not a post of a pic of a 12 legged baby smoking a pipe or anything like that which gets lots of responese but the more advice the merrier here, official sources would also be helpful.
cheers
- talk to your lawyer if you want something truthydoesnotexist
- I tried finding that image... no luck.ipissexcellence
- lol!********
- skelly_b0
I don't anything about UK tax law, but I would recommend you give a call to an accountant back home. I think the US is one of the few countries that expects taxes from expats. As for US taxes, if you're earning money here, you probably owe taxes at both the Federal level and the state you're working in. No free lunch round these parts.
Now as non-citizen / non-resident I don't know how they would track it all back to you.
- ipissexcellence0
I worked in a summer camp and the non-US employees didn't have to pay taxes here. Technically, I don't think you're allowed to make money if you are here without a workers visa. If you don't have a visa that allows you to work and you are working you're probably already in violation of the law here.
As you're breaking one set of laws already, why worry about taxes? I say smoke weed, have unprotected sex with animals, spit in Sarasota, FL (supprisingly just legalized), drink and drive, and take pictures of military base security checkpoints.
- statik0
thanks for the advice guys..
I have a work visa in vancouver, but I'm freelancing, earning money from clients in the US...plus canadian immigration said that I can be here even as a visitor without a work visa and earn money, as long as it's not from a canadian company.
hmmmm....
- joewigdahlphoto0
From my murky understanding of this- since you are from the UK you generally can work in protectorate countries like Canada and Australia without much in the way of a work visa. As for taxes, usually the country you're working in and the country you're a citizen both want your taxes but you don't necessarily have to pay taxes in the U.S. if the taxes you're paying in another country are significantly high enough you would be creating a tax credit that would apply to your U.S. taxes and would be above anything you'd pay in the states. That would be true for Canada.
This is a good site for expat stuff:
http://www.expatexchange.com/lib…It would be smart to keep tabs on what you owe because you wouldn't want to be blocked from getting into a country (or held in one) because they think you owe a ton of taxes.
- babaganush0
Talk to a uk accountant (probably recommended by a friend). I think as far as I remember it's worth paying a nominal National Insurance contribution constantly if you intend to reside in the UK ultimately one day - something to do with pension, income support or something but I may be wrong.
- isn't it like £2 or 4/week if you don't declare any income?raf
- ********0
If you put the money into a UK bank account then you have a UK address that you are registered at. At some point HMCIR will want to have a chat with you about your income. Even if the Inland Revenue aren't interested from an income tax point of view, the Customs side will be once the income flow accumulates. The Inland Revenue stand to lose an absolute bastard fortune at the moment so they are going to be like rats picking through shit for sesame seeds over the next ten years. Don't count on them not being interested.
If you aren't putting your money into an account and are managing to get by on cash in hand casual payments enjoy it while you can because it wont last forever.
- ********0
get a swiss bank account, then your money's untraceable.
ba da BING!! I really think you've found a nice loophole, as they might give you a bit of hassle, but you should be able to tell them to sod off as you can prove that you weren't a resident.
hmm sounds like a good way to go about it all. I think I might try the same one day!!
- Not that easy, I think you need Swiss or neighbouring country residence or a larger pile of money.raf
- joewigdahlphoto0
The swiss thing isn't necessarily a sure thing any more. A major swiss bank just announced that it's giving up a lot of names of people in the U.S. who opened accounts to avoid taxes as part of a huge settlement from being sued by the U.S. department of treasury. It's got its eyes on all of those off shore island bank accounts too. If you ever got caught, aside from possible jail time you'd still have to pay all of the taxes that you initially owed plus the huge interest penalties that governments put on late taxes.
Better off paying taxes and saving yourself the headaches.
- raf0