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Selling E-books where open a company

I get the point. I had thoughts about doing this solution but it got complicated and difficult when Amazon asks you to sign papers on who's the beneficial owner, since it wouldn't be the Cyprus company but the Seychelles company, in this case. Which can be a problem since they don't have a tax treaty with the US. It's hard to tell before you actually do it, Amazon just tells you to contact a tax advisor while in reallty, no one really knows how Amazon will handle it.

I just said screw it and will be biting the 12.5% bullet. Which isn't to bad compared to what I currently pay.
Do you think they will check the Cyprus company to see who the beneficial owner is? Another way around would be to setup the Cyprus company and Amazon account get everything approved and then register the Seychelles holding & transfer the shares of the Cyprus company to the holding. Don't you think that could work?
 
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Do you think they will check the Cyprus company to see who the beneficial owner is? Another way around would be to setup the Cyprus company and Amazon account get everything approved and then register the Seychelles holding & transfer the shares of the Cyprus company to the holding. Don't you think that could work?

I don't think that is a problem, even if they know it or not. Because, the rights for the books would still be owned by the Cyprus company. But yeah technically, the beneficial owner would be the holding company, so it's a good point. But unless I let them know that the holding company is the beneficial owner, I really don't think they will know. They are busy enough! But I shouhld probably look in to that.
 
I don't think that is a problem, even if they know it or not. Because, the rights for the books would still be owned by the Cyprus company. But yeah technically, the beneficial owner would be the holding company, so it's a good point. But unless I let them know that the holding company is the beneficial owner, I really don't think they will know. They are busy enough! But I shouhld probably look in to that.
Using nominee shareholder and director when registering a Cyprus company will protect you from anyone to find the real owner ;)
 
Starts typically at € 3k and goes up depending on what other services you need and which agent you choose to help you.

Let it be said already now. The agents that advertise setup of cyprus companies cheaper than their competitors will charge you later on when you have appointed them to be agent and nominees for the company. At the end of the day you risk to pay even more long term than with the agent that charge more from the beginning. However research is the key you want to get a quote from 4 - 5 agents to compare. But don't fall for the cheap.
 
No, thankfully they have no official list like Seychelles and Belize have. I have seen agents by recommendation of these jurisdictions that act clowns! It costs you aprox $5000 to get an registered agent i most offshore jurisdiction + a dead person that have lived there and his documents, easy to get!
 
Hello,


I started a small activity of sellings books (that i didn't write, I hired freelancers) on kindle when i was in france and I did not opened a company there, because it was not really succesfull.


Since a few months I moved in czech republic.


Now I sold 5k in june, 7.5k in july, 4.5k in august.


I need to open a company but in czech they charge a lot for taxes...


What is the best location to open a company to manage this sales and to pay taxes as low as possible ?


Thanks in advance
I was wondering if you are still around and where you get your company registered after all!?
 
Hey,

No, not at all, I chose the fully legit solution and I am currently being raped (on a voluntary basis) by taxes/VAT/Health insurance :)

I didn't, find a solution that would allowed me to keep a peaceful sleep:
- An offshore company with or without nominees? Useless, at the end, the bank will know who is the beneficiary due to their KYC and the bank will, sooner or letter give info of the bank account owner's to his country/tax office.
- One of the most "confidential" offshore country: seychelles, is not so much anymore due to the 2016 law: starting 1st december 2018 IBCs' directors will go public. Moreover the beneficiary of the IBC has to be listed and be kept by the agent. And I don't know any agent who would last long with any order coming from court to disclose info.
- Open an offshore with fake docs? 1) it's fully illegal and will led to a fully deep anal by Law Enforcement in your country and 2) with fake doc you will never, like never never, open a bank account, so it's a bit useless.
- Open an offshore full protected with natural person nominees and establish a loan between the offshore and you, by a lawyer. It could work, but then you'll be in the aim of the tax offices and have regular tax investigation.

So, no, I didn't find something that could work for me. Anyway, I like to read the forum!
 
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Hey,

No, not at all, I chose the fully legit solution and I am currently being raped (on a voluntary basis) by taxes/VAT/Health insurance :)

I didn't, find a solution that would allowed me to keep a peaceful sleep:
- An offshore company with or without nominees? Useless, at the end, the bank will know who is the beneficiary due to their KYC and the bank will, sooner or letter give info of the bank account owner's to his country/tax office.
- One of the most "confidential" offshore country: seychelles, is not so much anymore due to the 2016 law: starting 1st december 2018 IBCs' directors will go public. Moreover the beneficiary of the IBC has to be listed and be kept by the agent. And I don't know any agent who would last long with any order coming from court to disclose info.
- Open an offshore with fake docs? 1) it's fully illegal and will led to a fully deep anal by Law Enforcement in your country and 2) with fake doc you will never, like never never, open a bank account, so it's a bit useless.
- Open an offshore full protected with natural person nominees and establish a loan between the offshore and you, by a lawyer. It could work, but then you'll be in the aim of the tax offices and have regular tax investigation.

So, no, I didn't find something that could work for me. Anyway, I like to read the forum!

How much are you making now days if you don't mind me asking?

I ended up going with a US LLC that sells the books and a UAE onshore (Free Zone Establishment) that creates the content and that way I will move at least 95% of the income out of the US without paying tax on it. However, if you make over $1M a year another plan would probably be required... anyway, I think this will do for me for another year at least! I'm going to write a full post about my experience within a week or so.
 
Around 100k. It doesn't worth it to go with an offshore company, at least for me.
I don't get the point to open an US LLC? You're US citizen?
Moving 95% to the UAE? Balls of steel, you don't fear that your local tax office will start to argue that 95% is an abusive transfer price?

But, I am well known to be a pussy very conservative :)
 
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Around 100k. It doesn't worth it to go with an offshore company, at least for me.
I don't get the point to open an US LLC? You're US citizen?
Moving 95% to the UAE? Balls of steel, you don't fear that your local tax office will start to argue that 95% is an abusive transfer price?

But, I am well known to be a pussy very conservative :)

No offshore company would work for this anyway, unless it's a US offshore company, which is why I have a LLC there.
The reason for this is, a offshore company can't use a tax treaty, and not to get taxed at 30% Withholding, you need to either have a company in the US or in a country with a tax treaty to the US.

So the best you could do in corporate tax would be in Cyprus or Ireland - both have 12.5% corporate tax and a 0% tax treaty with the US.
But with that option you would have to have a local boss etc in order to be tax resident there and be able to use the tax treaty, aka not a offshore company but onshore.

So what I did is that I created a LLC in the US that buys the books from the company in the UAE (0% tax here).
That way I can charge a high premium price for the books and that way kinda set it up so the profit in the LLC will be about 5% or so. My CPA that specialize in these kinds of stuff recommended 5% and thought it should be ok. You gotta remind yourself, this is free money for the US, there is no reason that this company should have huge profits. It has no employees in the US, the company does nothing besides buying assets from one company and selling it on Amazon. All the man hours etc are done by the UAE company. So basically, the US will get tax money for nothing because nothing regarding the business is done in the US or by the US company.

So in the end, I will pay 35% tax on 5% of the revenue from the US LLC.

Not bad right? :D

This is 100% legit and I use no offshore companies, and I don't try to hide anything from the IRS.

I'm not a US citizen, I'm from Europe but I have my residency in the UAE now and that way I'm tax liable in the UAE, which is 0% as well.

This costed me about $15k to setup and will cost me about $7-8k a year to run by my estimation.

I was very very conservative as well which is why I researched this and consulted a lot of expert before I went for it.
 
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That's a good idea, I live in EU too, but I never had the 30% withholding with amazon. I just filled in their tax documents and got a 0% witholding with KDP.

The residency in UAE helps a lot :)
 
That's a good idea, I live in EU too, but I never had the 30% withholding with amazon. I just filled in their tax documents and got a 0% witholding with KDP.

The residency in UAE helps a lot :)

I will asume you where from a country with a 0% tax treaty with the US then, :)
My home country had that too so no problem on that end, but the tax in my home country was way to high so.
 
if the tax rate is more than 0%, that's too much. :)

No, the thing is, if you live in my country, even with your setup, I have to declare all the income here, and they don't overthink, they tax it at 35% + a fine, as in the law it's stated: "if the head lives in the country, he has to open a company in the country and declare all the corporate/private income(s) in the country" -period-

The only way we found was to make a loan agreement with an offshore, but the lawyers told me: be prepared for tax investigation and not only one.
 
if the tax rate is more than 0%, that's too much. :)

No, the thing is, if you live in my country, even with your setup, I have to declare all the income here, and they don't overthink, they tax it at 35% + a fine, as in the law it's stated: "if the head lives in the country, he has to open a company in the country and declare all the corporate/private income(s) in the country" -period-

The only way we found was to make a loan agreement with an offshore, but the lawyers told me: be prepared for tax investigation and not only one.

Ah yeah, in pretty much all cases, you have to move from your home country now days to do this in a legal way, which is why I moved.
However, if you do move, you are likely allowed to stay in your home country for 3-6 months a year anyway and not be tax liable there if you have tax residency elsewhere.