Moving Company to Cyprus, What's Possible in Terms of Personal Tax?

[lordchunkington]

Hi Guys,


I currently extract all profits from my company as a ltd salary, paying income tax of 50%+


Because of the setup of my company I need to extract profits as I go, I can't let them build up in the company over years.


I'm looking into the option of becoming non tax resident in Ireland and moving elsewhere, but unless I was to move the company elsewhere, any income from it would be susceptible to 50%+ tax.


I was looking at Malta as an option, but their 15% tax for wealth individuals only applies on income coming in from outside Malta, so from what I can see if I moved my compnay there also I'd be paying 35% income tax on any salary from it.


Can Cyprus offer anything better? Like I say I need to extract profits as I go, either as dividends or salary so I need an option that will work with this!


The company would also need to be VAT registered.


Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

[JohnLocke]

Can Cyprus offer anything better? Like I say I need to extract profits as I go, either as dividends or salary so I need an option that will work with this!

Unfortunately not much better than Malta.


It's difficult to avoid to pay personal income tax within the EU. Most expats go around the tax issue like they are not a resident of any EU country for more than 179 days in a year so they avoid to pay tax anywhere. However you need some good health and incident etc. insurance that will cover you otherwise you will be lost if something terrible happens. There are countries where you don't have any personal income tax next to low income tax to pay like Switzerland, Zürich and countries outside of the EU so you may carefully research a little. A other thing to consider is where you personally want to live to just move to a country for tax reasons may not make you happy for the rest of your live where you may live

 

[lordchunkington]

Thanks for the reply!


If I could withdraw salary at 15% in Malta that would be fine but if it was 35%+ plus the costs of living abroad it would not be worthwhile.


The option of living in 3+ countries would work well but I still think there would be the issue of paying tax where the company is based. So if I were to leave the company in Ireland and move to Malta it would still be Irish Source Income and eligible to Irish income tax.


So I'd imagine I might have the same issue if I was not resident in any country.


I'd agree about the quality of life issue. It wouldn't be something I'd be planning to do long term, but if I could move to a warmer part of Europe for 6-7 months of the year for a few years and it would have major tax advantages I think it would be worthwhile I can run/control my business from anywhere so moving would not be an issue from that perspective. I'd not be that interested in Switzerland/Andorra as they are not that appealing in terms of climate. Malta/Portugal fit the bill in terms of this, but it does not look like they would offer big enough tax savings to make it worthwhile?


Malta seems to offer 15% income tax to some industries as an incentive so I suppose it might be worth checking with their enterprise board to see if they would offer my company this. I assume it would be worth their while in that they'd be getting 15% of my income if I moved myself/my company there vs nothing if I did not...


Any further advice would be much appreciated.

 

[JohnLocke]

You can find the tax rates in Cyprus from the Inland Revenue Department here Inland Revenue Department - FAQ maybe it give you some idea about the personal income tax to be paid in Cyprus.