[alzamos]

I’ve not looked into it personally, but I’ll relay what I’ve heard from various people who have looked into this or successfully done this.

In one case one person, as you say, did everything on their own and pays a couple thousand every year to keep the entity in the favourable jurisdiction. When asked if it was all above-board, they said it was one of those grey areas where they hoped the govt didn’t look too deeply into it, but so long as they weren’t making millions they weren’t worried about an audit.

The other cases asked various accounting companies to set this scenario up for them (one to establish a software engineering consulting company, others to set up other companies). The responses ranged from “yes we can do this, it’ll cost you 15-20k upfront, then 5k in annual upkeep” to “no this isn’t looked upon too well by the Portuguese govt”.

[sho]

Well, your first example is a good "what not to do". Doesn't sound like much of a "grey area" if they're living in fear of being found out. I don't understand this kind of setup - financial information is permanent and once governments get their shit together there will be no safe havens, and this will apply retroactively. People playing such games are going to feel a lot of pain some coming day, I suspect.

I have to admit I don't know anything about Portugal but with a little research it is very possible to find a territorial tax-based country to live, where one does not owe any money on overseas income, and live completely legally there as a tax resident, taxed only only your minimal local salary - if that. Now I suppose that's not for everyone but if people were moving to Portugal specifically for tax reasons then I'm surprised they didn't, you know, check it out a bit first.