welcome to finland: you can leave at any time

[mshamber]

While living in Finland I once saw a joke about Finnish people's perception of foreigners. "Welcome to Finland. You can leave at any time"

Except they are not letting me leave.

I have a long term EU residence permit and after moving back to United States tried to get it cancelled with reason I have permanently left Finland. (I want to be clear of taxation as a Finnish resident. I believe I would work/pay taxes in USA and then owe money to Finland)

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Hello,
You have that kind of residence permit (P-EU) that we can not cancel it before you have lived out of EU two years or out of Finland six years.

( Under section 58, subsection 2 of the Aliens Act, a long-term resident’s EU residence permit is withdrawn if the alien has resided outside the territory of the European Union for two consecutive years or outside Finland for six consecutive years.)

best regards,
xxxxx

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Now I sent an email to Migri saying that both residence permits have a criteria to cancel and if you apply same logic to the normal type then you would refuse to cancel that also until they are out of Finland for 2 years. Waiting to hear back from that one.

So then other options to get it cancelled could be:

- Commit a serious crime (not pay my taxes to force them to cancel my permit so I owe no more taxes)
- Say I lied on my application

Ha Ha. Those are just thoughts going through my head and I wouldn't actually do it because I like visiting Finland.

[riku2]

(I want to be clear of taxation as a Finnish resident. I believe I would work/pay taxes in USA and then owe money to Finland)

Are you mixing up how the USA taxes it's citizens vs how all other countries in the world (except for Eritrea) tax people?

USA: Citizens pay tax to the USA regardless of where they live. Even if they left the USA, have lived abroad for years and never visit the USA again. This continues until they give up their US citizenship (although giving it up to avoid tax is not allowed!!) This bizarre situation is explained here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l2RDCx2YnA

Rest of the world: You are taxed based on where you live regardless of your citizenship or what residence permits you have. I am a UK citizen but have lived in Finland many years. I don't file any tax return to the UK, they have no business in my financial affairs because I'm not UK tax resident. I pay tax in the country where I live.

There are more complicated situations (eg if I bought a house in the UK and rented it out / sold it as a profit). But if you don't have any assets/income from the old country then you don't pay tax to them (excluding citizens of the USA and Eritrea).

[NeverSayNever]

I think the residence permit, residence and tax residence are different thing.
One person can hold a permit that allow he/she to live in EU but not actually live here.

If I get it right, foreigners left Finland permanently do not need pay tax to Finland. What you need to do is to make sure you do not have an address here.

[betelgeuse]

I have a long term EU residence permit and after moving back to United States tried to get it cancelled with reason I have permanently left Finland. (I want to be clear of taxation as a Finnish resident. I believe I would work/pay taxes in USA and then owe money to Finland)

Just notify DVV properly. As others have said you don't need to have your residence permit cancelled.