...double taxation agreements.
Oh well, where do I start?
A few months ago, I eagerly told you about incorporating Magic Pages. I went and had meetings with tax advisors, spoke to legal professionals, and familiarized myself with the nature of corporate entities and their legal implications.
Quite honestly: for a nerd like me, super interesting stuff.
But, Austrian bureaucracy is slow. Dead slow. In the end of April, I had my first meeting to get things rolling. Now, at the end of July, I am pulling the plug.
I could complain about the sloth speed, but honestly, I am glad it happened this way.
Yes, sometimes life just happens.
Setting up a corporate structure is easy. If you're in the US. Or the UK. Ireland. Estonia. Literally anywhere in the world, apart from Austria or Germany, I guess.
Dissolving a company is a bit trickier. You guessed it...unless you're in Austria or Germany.
And since my wife and I don't know whether Austria is really the place where we want to spend the rest of our lives, setting up a company just to dissolve it again in a few years seems rather stupid at the moment.
And yes, you can set up companies elsewhere. The Ghost Foundation is a great example of this. But, it works since they are completely location independent.
If you have tax residency somewhere, setting up a company (to pay yourself a salary) in another country is borderline insane.
It's not impossible, but it's also not easy. And yes, that's how I ended up reading countless double taxation agreements 🙃
The conclusion: Uhhh...nothing.
Project "Incorporate Magic Pages" is on hold. Not off the table, just on hold.
We'll need to figure out where we want to live in the long term. Is it Austria? Is it somewhere else?
Once we know that, I can make decisions on proper corporate structures that give Magic Pages the stability it needs, while providing me with the flexibility I desire.