Cheap (relatively) anonymous company with limited liability for website

[JustAnotherNomad]

I'm thinking to start a small website about a hobby of mine and try to make some money from ads/affiliate links. This will be a tiny side project and it will probably hardly make any profit.
Everything will be completely legal and fine, but as it's a public website, I am a little bit worried that someone may try to milk me for not having the right disclaimer, cookie popup, whatever on there.
For a proper project, I would just pay for a service to make sure it's all fine, but for this small hobby project, it doesn't make sense.

Instead, I'd rather use an "anonymous" company that also comes with limited liability. Like I said, everything will be completely legal, so it doesn't have to be 100% sure anonymous. It should just require some effort to find out who's behind it, more than a simple search in some public registers on the internet.

I don't know banking could be an issue, as I have no experience with AdSense and similar platforms. Can they pay out to a different entity or yourself as an individual, or does it always have to match the domain owner?
Can you just get an EMI account for a typical offshore company, and have AdSense pay into that?

What's the best solution for this? A single-member LLC from Wyoming, Nevada or New Mexico? A Seychelles company? Belize? BVI? Hong Kong?
I don't want to use darks or anything shady like that. Everything is absolutely legit and I also don't want to dodge taxes.

I just want to have as low expenses as possible, ideally just a couple hundred bucks per year.
The content on that website will of course be subject to copyright (my own content), in case that's relevant.

 

[Marzio]

I'd go with a WY LLC + Iubenda (they will handle all the legal stuff)

 

[JustAnotherNomad]

Thank you, that looks interesting! What about the tax filings for the WY LLC? Do you have any experience with how much that costs? Can you easily integrate AdSense or other platforms?

 

[Marzio]

When you say tax filings you mean filing form 5472? It could cost 300€/500€ year but once you get the hand of how it works you could even do it yourself. Iubenda service is pretty great, they integrate nearly every service on the planet.

Another option for you (if i remember corretly you are a DBX resident, right) is to use your main offshore company to be the main partner of a Ontario limited partnership.

Ontario LP is the only limited partnership in the world that could be run with a single member.

Yes your liability is illimited BUT you are behind the shield of your main offshore limited company.

The main benefit of the Ontario LLP is that the there's no public register (you have to pay to access it), they ask minimal information about the members (only name and address) and there are no tax filings if no business is performed in Canada.

 

[JustAnotherNomad]

The *limited* partnership should have limited liability, I guess? But I would prefer if it were a bit more complicated than paying for a public register to get access. Like requiring a court order to get the name or something like that.
I don't want to involve any of my main businesses in this in any way. This is a pure hobby project. I don't want to risk business assets over a hobby.

 

[Marzio]

In that case i’d go with WY LLC + Iubenda

 

[JustAnotherNomad]

Any idea how much the accounting is? I feel that US filings are a bit complicated and no one really knows which forms have to be filled.
Why not Seychelles/Belize etc.?

 

[Marzio]

It could cost you somewhere around 300€/500€ a year to do all the tax obligations for a US LLC.

Because LLC is a more agile vehicle and it doesn't have the shady perception of both Seychelles and Belize.

 

[uplana]

It could cost you somewhere around 300€/500€ a year to do all the tax obligations for a US LLC.

That's with the accounting firm Lubenda or what are they
this is the firm right
https://www.iubenda.com/en/

 

[Marzio]

That's with the accounting firm Lubenda

Iubenda is not an accounting firm is a SaaS that provide legal compliance for any business.

You go through a wizard that will let you add all the services you are using on your site from Google Analytics to FB ads conversion script and will auto generate a privacy policy, cookie policy and GDPR stuff for your site.

 

[jakubko666]

Buy hosting with "shield" service and do not write any of your personal informations on the web site. You dont need company.

 

[JustAnotherNomad]

Buy hosting with "shield" service and do not write any of your personal informations on the web site. You dont need company.

That won't protect me from liability claims, will it?

 

[JustAnotherNomad]

Wouldn't AdSense income count as royalties, so there would be 30% US withholding tax if the owner of the LLC resides in a country without a US tax treaty?
In that case, a UK Ltd. might be a better option? Possibly with nominees for added anonymity?

 

[Fulton Abraham Sanchez]

Wouldn't AdSense income count as royalties, so there would be 30% US withholding tax if the owner of the LLC resides in a country without a US tax treaty?
In that case, a UK Ltd. might be a better option? Possibly with nominees for added anonymity?

US SMLLC will be subject to 30% tax withholding only if the other party doing the payment in the USA.

 

[uplana]

UK Ltd. might be a better option? Possibly with nominees for added anonymity?

do you really believe a nominee for a UK Ltd will make this entity anonymous? I don't think so.

 

[JustAnotherNomad]

I don't need full anonymity, I would just prefer if my name didn't show up in a simple Google search.

 

[MiltonStone]

In that case i’d go with WY LLC + Iubenda

That's a very good choice.

I don't need full anonymity, I would just prefer if my name didn't show up in a simple Google search.

put nominees in there.

 

[sonato]

I don't need full anonymity, I would just prefer if my name didn't show up in a simple Google search.

once you get around here, you may want to let us know how you did the setup?

 

[MarkusCostigan]

Yes I'm interested too

 

[Spinat]

In that case i’d go with WY LLC + Iubenda

Good choice! Do it right and you will succeed. If possible for the agent, ask for appointing real person nominee to avoid lot's of troubles.