I've heard that even people who have lived in Malaysia for 20 years and are well-integrated are now moving. Seems like it's not a good place for foreigners anymore.
Yeah, but then you need substance somewhere else. Seems like︃ Malta/Cyprus are the most interesting options, but then you're looking at 5% tax + substance︄ + accounting.
Yes, I've thought about that, but:
1. How to find︉ such a director?
2. If you get a local (e.g. a Thai director in Thailand)︊ - would they really not care? I would think that it increases the risk.
3. If you do any kind of work for the company in the UAE, then there's︋ a major risk that there's a taxable PE for the company. So I can't imagine︌ a digital nomad visa would work.
4. The UAE doesn't have such a good tax︍ treaty network, so in the end, the benefits might be very limited.
I'm a nomad,︎ I'm just looking for a good base. I could also get residency in Paraguay -️ it wouldn't be tax residency, but it might be just as good as UAE residency, without the risks.
Or I could get residency in Thailand, get a local job and pay some tax there. Still no tax residency, but at least I enjoy living in Thailand.
I really like living in Dubai, especially because of its location close to Europe. You can go on weekend trips to Italy or France or Georgia, everything is so close. But I absolutely don't want to start submitting tax returns there. It's the wild west and there's no rule of law. Even if you could appeal a decision, lawyers︀ are so expensive that it's never worth it.
I've also thought about getting residency in︁ Qatar, but Qatar is extremely boring and they have very few tax treaties.
I was︂ hoping that there may be some way to get a tax residency certificate from a︃ country like Thailand while spending less than 180 days, because shorter absences would not be︄ counted (like most high-tax countries do it).
I guess one last option would be residency︅ in a country like China or Japan that don't tax you for the first 1-5︆ years or so in the country...