I’m reading “The four hour work week,” which suggests you elimate unnecessary tasks, create an income stream from a web-based company, and cut yourself loose from working from a fixed location. This all frees you to spend weeks or months traveling as you will instead of being stuck in a cubicle in DesMoines IA.
Sounds good.
But I’m wondering – what if you carried it to the limit? If you’re running your business purely through internet connections AND you have an extreme case of wanderlust, why bother with the fuss and expenses of maintaining a physical home? Sell your house, sell your car, sell all your furniture. Live in posh hotels wherever your whim takes you for as long as it pleases you, then take off again. Two months in London, three months in Milan, six weeks in Rio, etc. etc.
What would be the legal aspects of basically being ‘homeless?’ Where would you vote and pay taxes? The last state you actually had a residence in? Would having a rented storage compartment count? Or maybe where you chose to set up a mail box?
Would you lose your citizenship after X years?
How about lesser legal matters. It seems to be every governmental type form I’ve filled out required you to list your address. What if you simply don’t have one?
Many important documents are not legal or valid simply as digital copies so you need to have a physical receiving address and file storage depot somewhere unless you intend to cart them around. Also not everyone is up on digital billing so there would still be a lot of paper chasing you around that needs to be dealt with. I believe services like this are availablefor itinerant people.
You will probably need to make private arrangements to have the docs forwarded to you or give someone POA to handle things that have to be physically executed
The closest I could come to this would be being deployed–where I did maintain a mailing address, but that was it. My entire existence: bills, banking, etc. was all transacted online. The key to most of it was taking care of documents ahead of time, such as writing wills and power of attorneys, and most important (for your tourist)–the passports. Voting can be done by absentee ballot, and anything the state wants to bill you for can be paid either through Internet banking or via check.
Once you got all of those put together, you’re really good to go. You’ve established your privilege to travel (passport), who can do what for you when you’re gone (POA), and what happens to you and your stuff should you not return (your will). Everything else, IMHO, is just disposable. I didn’t need the utilities or apartment, so I cut them loose. I had access to the Internet over there, so voila. Once you cut out the “frills” in life or quit paying for what is provided for you, such as power, water, and food, it’s quite amazing how much more money you have in your pocket to spend.
But yeah, it can be done. If I wanted to press the issue, I could have cut ties and given some random mailing address and lived free as a bird. However, I wanted to keep my truck registered, and maintain residency in my home state to renew my drivers license on return (t’was about to expire).
Tripler
Wanna live on the lam? If you can find me, I can help.
. . . and I should have thought to answer these questions.
In my case, state citizenship is already accounted for when they set up our pay–basically the first day we come in. Even though I haven’t lived in New Jersey for nigh on nine years, it is still my “Home of Record” and I pay taxes for it. This establishes my residency. IANAL, and anecdotally, I did rent a storage unit in Montana to put my “immediate need” stuff in storage, and have used that as a nine month address–I gave the address of the storage facility. Most people didn’t notice, but I did make mention of it and the circumstances (hey man, I’m deployed!) and those folks perfectly understood and accepted it as a legal address.
However, citizenship? IIRC, and again IANAL, the states rules for citizenship are loosely defined unless you’re getting paid to be a citizen (i.e. Alaska). You’re considered “travelling abroad” which happens often enough with business types that they earn money abroad, but pay taxes levied on them by the state. So long as you pay taxes, you’re a citizen.
Which, given some other circumstances in licensing and permits, is the best advice I can give you: “So long as you pay taxes, you’re a citizen.”
ETA: Yes, I understand there are resident aliens that pay taxes. I’ve found that when dealing with states or counties, “So long as I pay your taxes, I’m a citizen.” is a valid enough argument–they don’t typically care about federal citizenship.
Tripler
Over the past nine years, I’ve lived in four states and visited three countries.
Interesting stuff. About mail, the author suggests reducing it as much as possible. Switch to emailed bills and online bank statements and such, cancel all subscriptions, use the direct mail opt outs, and so forth. And then find someone trustworthy who will let you use their address for any remaining mail, which you have them open and email you about anything that requires action. (Like, oh, a summons for Jury duty. That would be awkward.) Kind of an imposition on your friend, ISTM, but likely the mail would tail off fast.
Hmm. I’d be tempted to ‘move’ to NH, or any other state with no income tax. Let them tax my non-existent property at whatever rate they please.
And Uncle Sam paid for your transport and most of your clothes, too!
Good deal. Well, except for that risking life and limb detail.
The basic answer here (assuming you are a US citizen) is no, you would not lose your citizenship simply by not maintaining a residence in the USA. You could leave tonight and never return, and unless you do something to renounce your citizenship you’ll remain a USC all your life.
My folks, who are RV workkampers, know a couple who live in their RV. They spend anywhere from three-four months in a place, working in campgrounds and spending time with friends, then move on. Many retirees do this.
I saw them over Christmas, and they said there is a mail service based in South Dakota where they have all their mail sent. Then, for a fee, the service will forward their mail to them. So, for three months, they’ll get mail forwarded to Palatka, then they’ll tell the service to hold on to the mail, as they’ll be traveling, then when they end up at their next destination, they’ll alert the mail service as to their new forwarding address.
They do have their RV registered in some state for tax purposes, but other than that, they don’t have a fixed address. I didn’t ask them how they handle voting.
I did this in the late 80s, when I worked for hotels. I used to work for a company and I lived on property. The longest I stayed at one place was 8 months. So I put my few items in storage and got an address from a place where I rented a mail box (not a PO Box)
They also gave me a phone number as well. For $20/month I got the use of their street address plus a box. It was a number so I would list my address as
Markxxx
123 Fake Street
Apt 123
Chicago, IL 60611
And the phone number went to voice mail so people thought I had a real phone number but they got the answer phone. It just always went to the answer phone.
Then wherever I was I would call the place and have them put all my mail in a big envelope and mail it to me every so often.
I used that address for a state ID and for my insurance etc. No one knew it was just a mail box.
I imagine with Internet it’d be just as easy if not easier to do that today
Why do you think I keep my NJ residency? Yeah, I’d feel bad, but I have my drivers license there. Besides, I’ve survived NJ. I don’t feel guilty in the slightest.
Well, yeah. Except I wear the same thing day in and day out. And PCSing is getting to be a major hassle. I’ve saved up and bought the finest addition anyone could have in their personal inventory of household goods: a good sturdy pickup truck and a large cargo trailer–helloooo do-it-yourself moves!
A small point, if one cares about whether others know that you are using a mail-drop (i.e., are you trying to convince the world you have a physical domicile?): since Sept. 11, I believe the U.S. fed. gov’t requires that mail-drop addresses always and only be denominated as “PMB” (private mailbox?), 'cause that’ll prevent terrorism and such. They will explicitly tell you NOT to use “suite” or “apt.”
Uh, that last “rule” isn’t getting enforced too well.
I’ve got a friend whose car and driver’s license both read as an apartment number in Canton, OH while he lives in Akron… the address is a private mail box…
I’m enjoying it, in a way akin to the pleasure you get watching a documentary on the lives of giraffes. The personality traits needed to carry out what he suggests you do are close to 180 degrees away from my particular cluster of traits.
As in, you need to be energetic, and nimble, and open to having everything in your life open to change on extremely short notice, and most of all daring – will to risk losing your job and all you own because you’re confident you can climb your way out of any hole in short order.
Me – I’m a planner and cautious. Winging it has no real appeal.
He does go into quite a bit of detail, especially in regards to setting up that Internet business that gives you the income stream to allow you to either risk your job or stop it entirely. In a nutshell, he wants you think up some product that you can sell over the internet to a niche market (to reduce the competition) that will retail for between $50 and $200 AND which can be manufactured for no more than 1/8 or 1/10th that amount.
Then you build a website to sell your product and orders automatically go to a fulfillment house that takes cares of packaging and shipping and handles the credit cards, depositing your profit into your account. And you also find the manufacturer who will make the product and ship it directly to the fulfillment house. So the orders come in, company A makes the product and company B takes care of getting it to the customers. Basically all you have to do is come up with the product idea, research and test market, and contract with the other two companies – after that you sit back and wait for the money to magically appear in your account.
(Oh, and you have to talk Company A and B into accepting their payment from you via credit card – this will rack up the points to pay for your jetting off between companies.)
He does a good job of walking you through specifics on what kinds of product to try, how to test market them, what to avoid, etc. And he gives you a list of resources.
On the whole, I’d said it was worth reading if you think you have the traits needed to embrace that life style.
Or, like me, read it as a documentary on a different life form.
Let me point out that if you’re making enough money from your web based business to support this lifestyle, said business will have tax responsibilities and will have to have been licensed as a business entity somewhere. No reason not to set up whatever location that will be as your permanent legal residence and mail drop.
There are people who live on boats full time and travel around like people do with RVs. I think some of them have a home port where they spend a lot of time so they might declare that state to be their legal residence.
This would be illegal unless you have the right to work in London or Milan (via EU citizenship, or various work visas, for example). Then again, if you’re doing all your business online, the authorities are probably never going to find out. You could get by entering and staying in countries with a tourist visa.
Where you vote depends on where you are eligible to vote. For example, in the UK, you can vote in national elections if you are a Commonwealth citizen, and in EU Parliamentary elections if you are an EU citizen, but in both cases only if you are legally “resident” in the UK. Tourists do not count as being “resident”. Many countries allow expatriates to vote; some extend this right to expatriates only for a certain number of years. For example, I believe Canada allows its citizens to vote in Canadian elections provided they were resident in Canada in the last six years; after that, they lose the right to vote.
In summary, if you’re planning on moving from country to country every few weeks, you’re probably not going to be permanently resident anywhere, legally speaking, and thus probably won’t be able to vote at all, except perhaps in your country of citizenship, and even then possibly only for a few years into your plan.
As far as taxes go, you will probably need to pay income taxes in whatever countries you are working and/or living (but again, if the authorities have no idea you’re actually working there, then you could get away without paying them), plus possibly in your country of citizenship. Many countries have treaties which prevent double taxation.
Depends on the laws for where you set up your rented storage compartment or mailbox, but almost certainly those wouldn’t confer legal residency if you are actually living elsewhere.
Depends on the country. Some countries will lapse citizenship of people holding dual citizenship if they’re not resident there for a certain number of years. However, I don’t think any country will lapse someone’s citizenship if that would result in them becoming stateless. (There are UN treaties concerning such things.)
Then you probably won’t get any state benefits, permits, or identification, such as state health care, a driver’s licence, a social security number, or a passport. If you think you can live without such things, then I guess you don’t need a permanent address.
But that would be easy to get around, in my flat now I put
Markxxx
123 Fake Street #116
Chicago IL 60647
Who would know that *isn’t * a box. It’s my flat number. I will give you it should be relatively easy to check on it with the Internet, but in Chicago there are lots of weird address. People rent garages and mother-in-law apartments with numbers like 6 1/4.
You could run a mail drop easily. Just put up extra boxes and number them. The post office has no idea if the box is to a flat or just a made up number.
Let them tax my non-existent property at whatever rate they please.