Registering necessary for online business?

I’ve been passively scanning the forums for years - thank you all for the valuable information and inspiration…seriously!

There was a similar thread on here, but the case was slightly different so I want to make state my particular situation to see if the same applies.

My partner is in the US and I am in Europe (but from the US), and we have registered a business in the US. Our business is a website that sells a digital service (this is not the service, but imagine buying your personal horoscope online or something with no tangible physical product).

Taiwan has always fascinated me, and so I’m really happy that we are looking into operating in Taiwan. We plan to have our website translated to Mandarin, etc., and target a Taiwanese audience.

My questions:

  1. do we need to register this business with the Taiwanese government to make our first $, despite having no physical presence or physical product in Taiwan?

  2. how important is it that our website is hosted on a server in Taiwan vs in the US, where it currently is with a .com domain? Is the latency such a problem that it’s worth shifting over to Taiwan…or are there other factors to consider?

Thanks again for all your help!

It depends. Registering here has advantages and disadvantages, especially if businesses want to write off receipts when buying your product. A CPA can give the best advice and I would talk to one.

Here is the CPA I recommend. He speaks English.

Some customers and clients insist on a receipt or some documentation that payment was made. If people who use your service - in Taiwan or anywhere - do not normally require this documentation, then your problem may be accounting for how you are generating the money that you receive. So, if you were receiving payments in Taiwan that were being deposited in Taiwan banks, then you need to care because the Taiwan bank will report the payments.

If your Taiwan-based clients do not ask for official receipts with a Taiwan business registration number, and they are willing to pay you wherever you instruct them to, then you should think about how the Taiwan tax authorities would become aware of the transaction (unless you go out of your way to tell them).

This is why governments need to work together with each other to capture such transactions - here is a recent tax initiative to coordinate among 130 countries – and, guess what? Taiwan is not part of this: https://www.oecd.org/newsroom/130-countries-and-jurisdictions-join-bold-new-framework-for-international-tax-reform.htm


So, is it necessary for you to establish a legal entity in Taiwan? That depends on your clients. Usually, when we have many clients and large clients (i.e., companies, institutions), it is in your interest to establish a company to keep track of things and make sure taxes are properly handled.

2 Likes