Ireland company vs Cyprus company formation what you think is best?

[AlicaFunk]

I had a interesting discussion with someone here on the forum! He told me that a Ireland company will be cheaper to maintain than a Cyprus company based on the below information.

I'm a small Internet business doing all kind of stuff online
I have lots of transactions per months most PayPal transactions

I don't want to spend several thousands on tax reporting and account every year or even months. If you vote for Ireland could you please provide information on reliable agent / firm that can assist with the registration of a Ireland company?

Please help guys I depend on this forum very much during all my business planning.

 

[ImKing]

I have no clue about Ireland but it sounds attempting to me so I have made some research about this jurisdiction.

I found this Pricing & package options for company registration in Ireland - Register a Company Ireland on Google so it seems 175 Euro in total is what it costs and you are ready to start. But if they have any hidden fees or what else there is required I don't know but I will contact them in a few minutes to find out also to see if they respond to any pre sales questions.

 

[JohnLocke]

I don't know about company registration in Ireland but I assume that if you want to go that route you will want to use a provider trusted by the vast majority and where you can't find anything bad on the Internet Company Formation Packages - Irish Formations they are aprox €100 more expensive than the other provider mentioned in this thread.

Something that pop ups in my mind. If you can get a company for less than €500 why does people still look for Cyprus, Belize, Seychelles, Cook Islands, Panama and so on for company formation? Only logical answer for me is that Ireland provides no anonymity, that said then I read this:

Look where I placed the RED ARROW - it seems you don't need any ID nor there is any Due Diligence to register a company in Ireland!!

Something looks a little dodgy to me, maybe it's just me or someone can explain!

 

[AlicaFunk]

this is going to be interesting guys I hope some can jump in with additional information

 

[negon]

here are some facts guys:

Moderate formation requirements
Minimum two Directors, one Secretary (who can be one of the Directors) and one Shareholder required to form a company. The same person can be both Director, Shareholder and Secretary

Time scale
Incorporation in Republic of Ireland takes only few days from receipt of the documents and you'll receive paper copies of Certificate of Incorporation and other company documents as above.

Taxation
Republic of Ireland is not a tax free zone. There is a corporation tax of 12.5% which makes Ireland rather a "low tax" zone. However, one of the biggest benefits of Irish company compared to Offshore ones is that Irish company accesses double taxation treaties with more than 40 countries in the world.

I found this here Republic of Ireland Company Formation (South Ireland) - Trade Formation and it is in accordance with what I have found on other government sites about Ireland companies.

It looks like the above mentioned agency service don't know what they do or simply try to fool people into their business!!!

So to sum up:

• At least one of the directors of the company must be an EU citizens
• 12,5% Tax apply
• Nominee can be appointed as secretary but not director
• No Privacy at all
• They have 40 double tax treaties in place with other countries.
• It costs only £280 to establish an company in Ireland

The rebutation of Ireland may be in certain cases better than Cyprus but at the end of the day it comes to what you want to do with the company and if privacy matters for you. For the highest level of privacy you want still to incorporate your business in Cyprus!

 

[AlicaFunk]

Thank you auric for this information Does someone know this company Company Formations | Company Bureau is a professional company formation and corporate service provider in Ireland. are they reliable and can be trusted?

I consider to open an Ireland company beside a Cyprus company.

The Irish company requires at least 100 EURO paid up capital, why EURO?

The Issued or paid up share capital is the number of shares that have actually been allotted and paid for by the shareholders. We suggest issuing 100 shares of 1 Euro each. The 100 shares are divided between the shareholders to reflect the ownership of the company. E.g. 50/50, 90/10 etc. One person or company can hold all the shares. This is known as a single member company.

 

[ImKing]

And you can lookup Companies here https://search.cro.ie/company/CompanyDetails.aspx?id=204775&type=B as far as I can see Mc Donalds has been registered in Ireland since 2001 if we want to see the shareholder, director and secretary (latter is mandatory) it costs a few euro but can be ordered!

 

[dotbloup]

I just want to mention, there is a withholding tax of 20% on dividends for those who are fiscal residents in a country with no Double tax agreement with Ireland.
Dividend Withholding Tax - General Information Leaflet

Don't forget Ireland is an onshore country, if you live in Europe, 100% of the dividends you declared in Ireland should be declared in your EU country because a system that will start in september 2017, will check if the dividends you have declared in your own EU country is the same as in Ireland.

In order to get the Withholding tax exemption you need either a Certificate of residency from your own tax authorities or you can get the irish DWT exemption form stamped by your tax authorities.

 

[ImKing]

Do you know where we can find a list of countries that have a double tax treaty with Ireland?

 

[adoffshore]

In order to get the Withholding tax exemption you need either a Certificate of residency from your own tax authorities or you can get the irish DWT exemption form stamped by your tax authorities.

Do you know if it is a problem to get it stamped?

 

[dotbloup]

About what i said before, i didn't take into account the situation when there is a nominee shareholder !!!
In this case, the withdrawal of money would be done under the shareholder name.

DTA agreements with ireland
Tax Treaties

 

[dotbloup]

Do you know if it is a problem to get it stamped?

Option 1:
No it is not a problem at all. Usually in EU, tax authorities are aware of it. they are not like banks. I know someone who did it but the best solution that's the certificate of residency. I know the certificate of residency is issued by Spain, France, Cyprus... If you have TIN in your country ( Tax information Number) that should not be a problem.


Option 2:
And as i said before, most of the countries provide "certificate of residency" and you put it together with their Irish form. In this case there is no need for a stamp.


People who do tax optimisation using fiscal residency are used to those forms.


You can find the Irish exemption forms here:
Dividend Withholding Tax (DWT) Forms

 

[dotbloup]

Coming back to answering the question about Ireland or Cyprus for Small business on the internet.

The 2016 problem in Cyprus that's the tax audit.

On the other hand, in Ireland, you need to reach a 8,000,000 euros turnover before forced to audit your accounts !!!

CRO - Audit Exemption Company

So, if for some reasons, you get lots of invoices (like 100 per months of 20 euros each) in your bookkeeping you don't care because your tax audit service fee will not blow at the end of the fiscal year. On the other hand, from what i know from Hong Kong, lots of small businesses on the internet have been surprised when they had to pay 2500 euros to 4000 euros for tax audit... Now, i guess it will be the same next year for Cyprus.

I guess that Cyprus is better if you have a small number of invoices. (Few invoices and big amount per invoice). And also Cyprus is better if you live in a flat tax country like Bulgaria. Because in this case you get 0% cyprus IBC and pay only 10% income tax in Bulgaria.

In my EU country unfortunately, the local tax authorities know that we can get money from IBC and they increased income tax when money comes from places with no Corporate tax.

 

[AlicaFunk]

On the other hand, in Ireland, you need to reach a 8,000,000 euros turnover before forced to audit your accounts !!!

Even you don't need to file audit accounts a Irish company still has to maintain accounting which again will be invoiced on a per hour rate or did you see any offers for a flat rate then please post?

 

[adoffshore]

In my EU country unfortunately, the local tax authorities know that we can get money from IBC and they increased income tax when money comes from places with no Corporate tax.

So what are you doing where have you your offshore company?

 

[dotbloup]

I have found this about the Dividend withholding tax:
Irish individual shareholders are taxable on the gross dividend at their marginal rate, but are entitled to a credit for the tax withheld by the company paying the dividend. Repayments are made where the shareholder’s tax liability is less than the tax withheld.

@adoffshore
I can't give details but the solutions is something very similar to this:
Anonymous bank card with personal IBAN account number, QCKCard

 

[Dave]

For the highest level of privacy you want still to incorporate your business in Cyprus!

Can you please tell me why Cyprus has highest level of privacy? Doest it NOT HAVE OPEN REGISTRAR?

 

[negon]

Can you please tell me why Cyprus has highest level of privacy? Doest it NOT HAVE OPEN REGISTRAR?

Yes it has but by appointing nominees you can avoid to be listed anywhere! Thats not the case with an Irish company!!

 

[Dave]

Yes but you can use nominees in BVI and Seychelles - I wonder what makes Cyprus nominees any MORE SECURE?

 

[negon]

Yes but you can use nominees in BVI and Seychelles - I wonder what makes Cyprus nominees any MORE SECURE?

It's not more secure than BVI, Belize, Seychelles etc, but since Cyprus belongs to the EU you get way more options for banking and merchant account + double tax treaties and other complicated tax stuff. So to sum it up, with a Cyprus company you get everything a offshore company for instant in Belize has + additional tax benefits when doing business in the EU.