Moving to Aruba/Cancun/Australia tax/residency questions

[LImitPlayer]

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shut up no one likes you

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Aw, I'm hurt I really am. After all, my main concern these days is to be "liked" by a bunch of faceless strangers on an internet poker forum.

I really don't care if you like me or not, all I want from this site is poker knowledge.

But please can we be friends?

[TheMetetron]

I know this isn't what you wanted, but if you go a little farther down:

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Earned and Unearned Income

Earned income was defined earlier as pay for personal services performed. Some types of income are not easily identified as earned or unearned income. These types of income -specifically, income from sole proprietorships, partnerships, and corporations, stock options, pensions and annuities, royalties, rents, and fringe benefits - are further explained in Chapter 4 of Publication 54, Tax Guide for U.S. Citizens and Resident Aliens Abroad .

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First of all, if I'm filing schedule C for being a professional gambler, is that not a personal service performed? What about if I make over the $80k a year threshold just from propping for certain sites.... certainly that is a service performed and earned income, no?

Sole proprietorships are also a gray-area which is another classification I could fall under since I'm filing schedule C.

It seems to me like they are excluding gambling winnings for non-professionals, but if they want to say there is no such thing as a professional gambler, I'm all for that since I can just not pay SE tax... those savings are even bigger.

Checking out that page is says to go to:

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If you are a sole proprietor or partner and your personal services are also an important part of producing the income, the part of the income that represents the value of your personal services will be treated as earned income.

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You want to tell me that my personal services are not a 100% necessary part of the sole proprietorship making it's money?

I don't see how the 80k cannot apply.


Sorry for the hijack, TStone.

Of some importance is that you don't need to be a permanent resident of another country, you simple need it be in a foreign country/countries 330 days out of the year.

[TheMetetron]

Also, don't forget about the foreign housing deduction you can take as well.

[TStoneMBD]

i dont mind the hijack at all because you had things to say i hadnt heard yet. what is this foreign housing deduction you speak of?

[TheMetetron]

Foreign Housing Deduction

It's a deduction on your foreign housing / utilities for self-employed individuals working overseas. You have to be making over $80k for it to kick in (because you can't deduct parts of the 80k twice). You also can't deduct more than you make (obviously).

There are some calculations on that page, but I believe they only apply to your foreign housing exclusion (provided by your employer) which you don't have, since you are self-employed.

[TStoneMBD]

my lease expires next june at which point i think im going to put my stuff in storage and visit a country or two to see if i like the idea of living there. i have an idea of which countries i would like to live in most but one of the purposes of this thread was to narrow my decision.

i really want to live someplace warm and i want to make scuba diving with tropical fish my hobby. i want green beaches where you can see the ocean floor. ive been interested in aruba for quite some time now because from my understanding they dont tax gambling winnings. everyone also tells me that aruba is great and that i would love it there. the person who said aruba is boring in this thread is the first person to tell me i wouldnt like to live there. i could certainly understand why. small country not much to do. another nice incentive however is that they have the party cruise come down to aruba every year so there will be some poker action.

i just recently came up with cancun mexico because it has alot of great features of awesome beaches, tourist location and 1 month a year its spring break.[img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img][img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] ive done some apartment searching online for cancun and here is one of the places i found:

http://www.torreshuitzilin.com/

how awesome would it be to live in a place like that?

i threw in austalia because ive heard they dont tax gambling winnings but besides that i dont have much interest there. sounds like nice beaches and at least its a big country so im sure there is plenty to do where i wont get bored. in a small isolated place like aruba all you have to offer you is beaches and liquor.

[AASooted]

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i really dont want this to turn into a tax credit question. the purpose of this thread was to ask about how to obtain permanent residence in a foreign country and what the tax rates are in those countries.

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For Australia, you can start with their immigration page.

[TheMetetron]

I lived in a similiar place to that (though admittedly not as nice, at least by the pictures) in Rosarito, Mexico (30 minutes south of Tijuana on the Baja Coast) for about a month last year.

It was an awesome experience (especially since it was during spring break.... my god I've never gotten so much tail so easy) and I think you'd like Cancun. I would have rather lived there, but Rosarito was closer/cheaper for me at the time.

Aruba also seems like a similiar kind of dynamic. You might also want to try San Jose, Costa Rica (PM geormeit, I think he's living there now). I could easily see living in one of these places for a year.

The other great thing about living in Mexico was the ridiculously cheap groceries / food. For under 100 pesos ($9), I bought 3 dozen eggs, 20 strips of bacon, a 2 gallon jug of Sunny D, a huge package of hash browns, and a huge ass bottle of ketchup from the grocery store. If I didn't feel like cooking, $1 tacos and $3 burritos were 2 blocks from my condo.

Damn... I think I might move to Cancun for a month this year during spring break... this all sounds too tempting [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[TStoneMBD]

thanks AAsooted this is exactly what im looking for. do they have links like this for aruba and mexico by any chance?

[TheMetetron]

Also, tourist cards are good for up to 180 days in Mexico and are pretty easy to get. Go to the nearest mexican consulate for a resident visa that will be good for more than 180 days (no idea how long).