David

From Portugal to the world. Tech exec in Dubai

[David @davidsrlx]

@levelsio Wow that’s so cool

[David @davidsrlx]

@levelsio That is a stupid argument Dubai was built by people that have centuries of culture. This is fully embedded in the society today, and after spending few years in Dubai it does really changes you

[David @davidsrlx]

@Teslaconomics What do you need a personal banker for?

[David @davidsrlx]

@anah_sahh What to ask

[David @davidsrlx]

@bankertobuilder So you do a 2nd full time job driving to your 1st full time job? 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[David @davidsrlx]

@joaoasousa @bankertobuilder Exactly 😂😂😂

[Pedro Santa Clara @psantacl]

Portugal charges foreigners 20% and its own people 48%

A $150,000 tech salary, run through 44 tax codes. Lisbon finishes 42nd. Only Helsinki and Brussels take more.

I checked the arithmetic against the 2026 IRS schedule. It holds. On €129,904 the state takes €59,288. Effective rate 45.6%. I land within $18 of the chart.

That is the flattering number.

Add the 23.75% employer contribution. A Lisbon firm spends €160,756 to put €70,616 in an engineer's pocket. A 56% wedge. At the margin it is 64%. To give a senior engineer €1,000 more in net pay, a Portuguese company must find €2,810.

Every formerly communist capital on this list takes less than we do. Tallinn 22.4%. Prague 27.9%. Budapest 33.5%. Warsaw 41.0%. Bucharest 41.5%. Madrid, one border away, takes 39.1%.

One reason is a line nobody in Lisbon argues about. Spain caps the social security base at €5,101.20 a month — €61,214 a year. Germany caps it. The United States caps it. Portugal does not. A Portuguese worker on €130,000 pays €14,289 in contributions. A Spaniard on the same salary pays about €4,000. Same job, €10,000 apart, before a cent of income tax.

Now the part that should embarrass us.

Portugal already offers 20%. It is called IFICI, Article 58.º-A of the Estatuto dos Benefícios Fiscais. Move here from abroad, take a qualified job, and you pay a flat 20% for ten years. The state takes 31% instead of 45.6%. On this chart that is New York, not Brussels.

The condition is that you must not have been a Portuguese tax resident in the previous five years.

The state knows what a good engineer is worth. It has written the price into law. It just will not sell at that price to anyone in Coimbra.

Two objections, and my answers.

"Nobody in Portugal earns €130,000, so the chart is a fantasy."

Correct, and it makes the case worse. At €45,000 the state takes 31.4% — roughly London. The median developer does not leave over the rate. He leaves over the gross. Amsterdam pays double. Seattle pays triple.

But ask why the gross is low. No Lisbon employer can win a bidding war at €2.81 of cost per €1 of net pay. The wedge is not a consequence of low wages. It is a cause of them. The chart holds salary constant, which is the one thing the world refuses to do.

"Young workers pay far less, because of IRS Jovem."

They do, for exactly ten years, on the first €29,542. Then the regime expires.

Follow one engineer. Year 1, earning €32,000, the state takes 11%. Year 6, on €55,000, it takes 23.9%. Year 9, on €70,000, 33.1%. Year 11, still on €70,000, 37.8%. His salary has not moved and his net pay falls by €3,294.

He is thirty-three. He has eight years of experience and a LinkedIn inbox. We have built a tax system that is kind to him while he is cheap and turns on him the moment he becomes valuable. It is a retention policy that stops working at precisely the age when retention starts to matter.

What I propose.

I modeled the cautious version: cap contributions at €88,000, kill the solidarity surcharge, move the 48% threshold to €250,000. Result: 45.7% becomes 42.2%. Lisbon climbs from 42nd to 38th. Not worth the political capital.

So, three moves.

One. Cap social contributions. Both sides, at three to four times the average wage, with a matching cap on pension accrual. This is not radical. It is what Spain, Germany and the United States already do. We are the outlier and nobody can explain why.

Two. Extend IFICI to everyone in an eligible activity. No residency-history test. Include the Portuguese who stayed and the ones who want to come home. The regime either works, in which case give it to everybody, or it does not, in which case scrap it. A tax code that charges a foreigner 20% and a Portuguese 48% for the same desk is not a policy. It is an insult with a portaria number.

Three. Then merge the two into a taxa única at 20%, with a large personal allowance and contributions capped. On €129,904 that puts the total take at 26% and net pay at $111,067. Lisbon lands eleventh, between Geneva and Denver.

The third step costs real money and has to be paid for by spending less. Anyone who tells you it pays for itself is selling something.

A tech worker needs a laptop and a contract. This chart tells him where to sign it.

[David @davidsrlx]

@gajabroa @claudiashandi E arroz com ovo e atum? Alguém?

[David @davidsrlx]

@mrfundman Please! 🙏

[David @davidsrlx]

@KenzieLFC LOL how do you write shit like this.

[David @davidsrlx]

@opnfm @dhh HAHA

[David @davidsrlx]

@Cristiano @AlNassrFC @AlNassrFC_EN Ronaldo Super Sayan Mode!

[David @davidsrlx]

@elonmusk ahahah beautiful

[David @davidsrlx]

@paul_conyngham @grok why can’t this be used for humans?

[David @davidsrlx]

@tiagopita O único modelo de imigração que funciona é o dos GCC

[David @davidsrlx]

@levelsio @xai I’ve used both Claude and codex and can say that codex is much more independent and better computer use. Fable is really strong and always deliver without flaws but it stops many times to ask questions almost on purpose to slow you down. I will move to grok 4.6 next month

[David @davidsrlx]

@tomcohen @robertskmiles Interesting. I think the other way around there is nothing to be created only discovered

[David @davidsrlx]

@psantacl @LadrBic Não está preocupado ou não percebe como a economia funciona

[David @davidsrlx]

@rubenhume The first I agree too much, but this example is really bad as well.

[David @davidsrlx]

@viriato888 Zero de valor para a sociedade