Bullshit and Immigrating to Portugal

First, I want to apologize for the attention-grabbing headline. In many ways, it is a cheap tactic to grab one’s attention, and we get enough of that from Youtube video thumbnails and AI-generated slop content. Click-bait. But, in this case I have a reason for using this term. For this newsletter update, I’d like to write a bit about how bullshit spreads through influencer content, relocation agencies and immigration lawyers, and well-meaning people sharing bad information in the various online communities for people moving to Portugal. Even under the best of circumstances, planning an international move is difficult. One needs reliable and accurate information to make a bunch of important decisions. Bullshit can make this process significantly more difficult.

Also, it is important for me to point out that bullshit does not need negative intent. Bullshitters often have at least some good intent, but they don’t bother putting in the effort to find out of their answer is good or not. Laziness and overconfidence produce a lot of bullshit.

What is “bullshit”?

We are all familiar with the term “bullshit”, and likely have all yelled it at some point, or several points, in our lives. But for my purposes here, I want to use a much more structured definition of the term. I want to use the definition created by American philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt in his 1986 essay On Bullshit. The Wikipedia article provides a nice summary of On Bullshit and is worth a read. At the core of this essay, Frankfurt defines bullshit as “speech intended to persuade without regard for truth”. An honest person and a lier both have to acknowledge the truth of a situation. The lier will then take steps to hide the truth and provide a different story, but the truth is still there. A bullshitter, on the other hand, doesn’t care. To a bullshitter, if it feels true, it must be true. A bullshitter doesn’t care, doesn’t take the time to question or confirm his statements.

A lier will have a clear intent to deceive. A bullshitter, on the other hand, can hide behind a lack of intent to deceive, but can still cause the same problems as the lier.

Where to find, and how to recognize bullshit.

Unfortunately, it isn’t difficult to find bullshit when researching and planning a move to Portugal. By now, most of us are familiar with the overly optimistic “move to Portugal and live like royals on only $2,000 a month!” Influencer videos and articles. Then there’s the “Portugal is a dystopian nightmare of bureaucracy and everyone hates Americans” counter-bullshit content. So, one clear sign of bullshit is any content that paints an extremely negative or positive spin on Portugal. We all know reality is much more complex than these over-simplifications want you to believe.

Another red-flag for bullshit is any content that paints a process as incredibly complex and risky, and the only way forward is to hire someone to do the work for you. All too often, the person presenting this form of bullshit is also the same person providing the solution.

Some other red flags for bullshit:

• Never trust an answer that is too short; if a person doesn’t take the time to explain why they’re giving an answer, that’s a red flag. One-word answers in online communities should be banned, they do nothing to help.
• One person’s experience may not apply to yours. It can help you arrive at a solution to your problem, but pay more attention to how that person figured it out and less attention to the actual solution.
• Be careful with appeals to authority. If you hear directly from an accountant or immigration attorney on a topic in their field, that is almost certainly reliable information. But, if someone says “my accountant or lawyer said xxxx” that’s a red flag.
• Good information for one person might not be helpful to you. Context is everything.
• Timing is critical. Something that might have been true in 2024 no longer applies now. If someone tells you “when I went through this in 2023, this was my experience”, that is good information. It ultimately might not apply to you, but you have some important context.

Never trust an answer from someone who doesn’t ask follow up questions.

This is, by far, the most important thing to look for when trying to understand if someone is bullshitting or not. Remember, a bullshitter doesn’t care about the truth or the quality of information he is providing. Most people, when asking a question in an online community, rarely provide enough information in their initial question to receive a good answer. A helpful person will ask follow up questions and guide that person through the process of understanding. A bullshitter will fire off an answer without regard for any information needed to provide a good answer. As I noted earlier, context is critical. A helpful person will ask follow up questions to better understand your situation. A bullshitter will simply fire off an answer and enjoy their little dopamine hit.

How can bullshit hinder your move to Portugal?

I’ve spent a lot of time (probably too much time) in many of the online communities for helping people, particularly Americans, move to Portugal. These communities were invaluable to us when planning our move. Unfortunately, even in the best communities, there’s bullshit. Remember, a bullshitter doesn’t necessarily intend to deceive. A bullshitter just doesn’t care about the truth, so they are happy to give answers and share information without regard to if it is accurate or even helpful.

At best, bullshit will only slow you down by forcing you to sift through bad information in order to surface the useful and helpful information. But bullshit can cause real harm, too. Here’ are a few examples that keep popping up:

• Telling people, especially Californians, that they need to move to a state without income tax before moving to Portugal. This one is particularly obnoxious, and I even wrote an article about things to consider for state income tax when planning your move. California does have very stringent definitions of tax residency, and California residents need to take great care when planning their move. But FTB Publication 1031 (2024), Guidelines for Determining Resident Status does a great job of explaining this. Moving to Florida or Texas does nothing to help manage tax residency in California, and provides a false solution, rather than addressing the real work needed. Ignore this bullshit and instead read the materials provided by the FTB and check with your local accountant, just in case.
• Telling people they need to form an LLC in order to avoid paying income tax or contributing to social security here in Portugal. There’s a few variations of this, too. Telling people that you don’t need to pay taxes on income from US clients, or having the money deposited to a US account will shield that from the higher tax rates in Portugal. Tax matters seem to attract a lot of bullshitters. I’ve seen more than a few people think a US LLC is some sort of magic shield to protect them from taxes in Portugal. There are a lot of influencers and agencies who benefit from selling advice in this area. If you plan on working in Portugal, please, please, please set aside a significant amount of time and effort to thoroughly research and understand your obligations.
• Assuming AIMA is hopelessly broken, and the immigration system in Portugal is in a complete state of chaos. Clearly, the immigration system in Portugal has been through a lot in recent years, with Covid, expression of interest, and disbanding SEF. The last few years have been a real struggle. There were a series of significant bureaucratic changes. Bullshitters will tell you that Portugal has always been this way, and always will be this way. This ignores the reality of the situation, though. AIMA has done a lot to right the ship. They have made significant improvements in technology, staffing and processes over the last 2 years. While there is significant work remaining, the progress is real. But, there’s bullshit out there telling people AIMA is hopelessly broken, that you can’t contact them for anything, or that permit renewals can take a couple of years. I read about people who just sit and wait, or pay a lawyer to tell them to sit and wait, when a quick call to the AIMA support line could have answered their questions. What was true 2 years ago, is not true today.

What can you do?

• Look for a consensus, never trust the first voice you hear on a topic.
• Look for information that clearly explains how the person reached their conclusion and what sources that person used to get there.
• Consider the person’s motivation - will that person gain from helping you solve the problem?
• Don’t trust anyone who paints an overly positive or overly negative view of a situation.
• Educate yourself as much as possible from a wide range of resources. Online communities can be particularly helpful, but some are better than others.
  – Closed Facebook communities tend to be the highest quality. – Open Facebook communities and Reddit communities can be a mixed bag, often because people can hide behind screen names. – Consider the credibility of the person posting the information. Is it a new account, or someone who recently joined the community? Both Facebook and Reddit have tools to help determine someone’s reputation.
• Be skeptical but not cynical. Trust, but verify. It can be easy to lose hope or give up when you hear the bullshit over and over. It can be easy to lose hope in your ability to manage things on your own. Bullshit and cynicism go hand-in-hand. Resist that urge.
• Good information will answer your question; great information will teach you how to figure out the answer on your own.