# Split year treatment moving from Spain to Portugal? +Looking for a portuguese tax adviser.



## Marcos83 (Jun 5, 2021)

I've been told by a couple of spanish tax advisers that if you physically stay in the country for over 183 days you'll be seen by the AEAT (Agencia Tributaria, spanish tax authorities) as a spanish tax resident for the whole year, since the 1st of january until the 31st of december, but that also works the other way around, if you are out of Spain for over 183 days (I know there are more conditions, I'm just focusing on this one now), you wouldn't be a tax resident for the whole year since the 1st of january, no matter when you move out, you could move in may and still not be a tax resident since the beginning of that year till the end.

However I've also been told by someone else that if you move to Portugal in may, september or any other time of the year, you'd be seen as a portuguese tax resident by the portuguese tax authorities just from the moment you are living in portuguese territory, so you'd only pay your taxes in Portugal for that time.

Then my question would be: what happens if you move from Spain to Portugal now? You'd be in Portugal for over 183 days, you'd pay your taxes from this day until the end of the year, not for the previous moths, but Spain would not see you as a tax resident since the 1st of january, so I guess you just pay your taxes in Portugal and that's it?

I've been told, or this is what I've understood, that if you have had some income from a job or from a business or from selling a property in spanish territory, you'd still have to pay for that in Spain, but what happens with anything generated outside of spanish territory since the 1st of january until you move to Portugal? 

Let's say an investment in crypto you could have outside of Spain. In theory (nobody really do it afaik) you have to include every swap from one crypto to another (bitcoin to ethereum, for example) in your tax declaration because they are seen as capital gains for some reason, which is dumb with such a volatile market where you can lose everything in a couple of days, but then what happens if in march you do a swap in a exchange that is legally located in Malta or that is not located anywhere because it's a decentralized exchange and in april you move to Portugal where crypto is just tax free for non professional traders.

You are not seen as a tax resident in Spain since the 1st of january and you are a tax resident in Portugal since april, however you did a crypto swap of bitcoin to ethereum (no fiat currency like euros or dollars) in march but not in a platform that is legally based/located in Spain, I guess you wouldn't have to do the spanish tax declaration just for that when legally you were not a tax resident there and the swap was not executed in spanish territory and when not even people living in Spain care for any of this and spanish tax workers don't seem to have much of an idea of how all of this really works?

I've been looking for a portuguese and spanish tax advisor that have some knowledge in this kind of stuff, how something like this would work taking into consideration how the spanish and portuguese tax residency and crypto laws seem to be so different, crypto is actually not regulated and Spain just tries to get a cut however they can while Portugal seems to be more relaxed about it now, but when I google "tax advisers crypto" the results for Spain and Portugal are usually huge law firms asking for 4000 or 5000 euros just to talk with you and send you a paper explaining stuff I already know, while more modest or "normal" tax advisers/consultants/accountants don't seem to have much of a clue about any of this and if anything they tell me is incorrect I just don't know what would happen, I've been told (not sure if it's true) that spanish tax advisers have zero legal responsability if anything goes wrong while portuguese consultants do have legal responsabilty, but no idea of what that really means, that if I did anything incorrectly I could just say that I was wrongly advised and maybe find a way to fix it or if it would mean that just both me and the adviser would get in problems and that's why they would be more careful, which is an option that I'm not sure if it convinces me very much. 😅

Does anyone here know of a good portuguese tax adviser that could just answer a few questions I could have for a reasonable price and maybe help me with some other stuff like tax paperwork or anything else I could need in the future? Preferably that had some knowledge and experience regarding crypto taxes in Portugal. Thanks.


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