For those of you who have experience registering a business overseas for tax purposes, I would like some advice.
Let’s say me and a friend have a software product that we plan to launch soon. Customers will be global, and individuals rather than companies, so no need to allow Taiwanese customers to use 統編.
We want to register in a country or US state with little to zero corporate tax, and very minimal registration and maintenance fees. Ideally whichever place we do it in will allow us to file taxes without an accountant.
The key is that both of us live in Taiwan, and we need to register in a place that will allow us to pay ourselves (either a salary or a dividend) to us in Taiwan.
We’d like to be able to register the business and open a local business bank account in that country all online. We never want to step foot in the place we are registering the business in.
To be honest there are tons of countries that meet our requirements, but I wondered if anyone has any experience with this from Taiwan.
We base out of Estonia, they have e resident programe and lower start up tax rates. In the USA, a state like Washington State has no income tax, but you still need pay USA federal Tax no matter state your in.
I second Estonia. You get a “real” company (incorporated which has its own legal entity).
For Taxes (from the Estonian side), you’re looking at 0% on salary payments (if you’re outside Estonia) and 20% on distributed dividends (no tax on retained earnings). Not exactly “low-tax”, but still lower than many other countries.
The cost for accounting etc. should be less than €100/month which is also not too bad in my opinion.
Maybe is possible. In Taiwan we started with a CPA and moved it in house. In EU , I think it’s better use accountant at the start at least for us, spend more time on business and less on accounting.
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P.S. Estonia is a great place to visit while remote working
No, for Estonia’s eResidency-Scheme you need at least an appointed agent and a mailing address within Estonia. The fee for the service provider should cover this.
And you don’t want to do the accounting yourself because you would need to submit some documents in Estonian (they provide translations for almost everything, but the official language is still Estonian!). And possible also communicate with the authorities in Estonian sometimes…
And of course, you would need to follow and be aware about all relevant laws and regulations regarding accounting, submission of annual reports, auditing, …
That is a bit contradicting to your wish do to everything by yourself.
Can you still open a local bank account in Estonia as a non resident? I read it’s almost impossible as of a few years ago. I just got my Estonian e residency but reading on Reddit it seems there’s not much choices of banking.
You need to differentiate between opening an account for an Estonian business and opening a personal account. For the latter one, you need to prove sufficient ties to Estonia. Owning a business there might or might not suffice for a personal account.
From the FAQ of one of the service providers offering incorporation in Estonia:
In order to get a standard business bank account with LHV, they require a physical face-to-face meeting with a bank representative, largely due to security concerns such as anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism.
To make your life easier when you’re opening your LHV account, Xolo will assist you with relevant banking procedures both before and during your trip to Tallinn, Estonia. While we can’t guarantee the success of getting a bank account for your business (this is the sole decision of LHV), we can get you pre-acceptance for a bank account.
If I ever make it to Estonia, I’ll probably try opening an account with LHV. Until then, I am limited to Wise (and IBKR).
EDIT: Or maybe not: I just saw that LHV charges €300 for opening an account and 30€ in monthly fees for a “Legal entity registered in Estonia with non-resident owners”.
So probably Wise is still the best bet in that case…
You can make appointment and talk with them about your business next time your in Estonia. As the other post mention, they do not some passports as for some nations bad history or some need lots of documents for tax which they may not want to do. Taiwanese or Japanese should be fine.
If its personal account, and your not living there why would need account there with no business.
forget about Eastern Europe my friend. Open an off shore account in the Seychelles, or Bermuda . Moght as well have some fun opening your bank account.
on a serious note: jus regal can help you open an off shore company in the Seychelles, Singapore could also be a good option. But i dont have forst hand experience.
to answer your question about bank fees, most of the banks have info online
sample SEB bank (the regional bank, link is for EE (Estonia) accounts) https://www.seb.ee/en/price-list
a tip: cash use is going down, so use cards/e payments as there may be some fees for large cash transactions at the bank (small fee mostly), growing number of shops, cafe going cashless
