Need advise for offshore + merchant account

[davosaseg]

Hello,

I have a business operating from Mexico, but we want to avoid paying such high taxes that we pay in Mexico and go offshore. We are a software as a service business... We automate sales outreach for b2b companies.

I have been struggling to know what and where to incoporate since we find good solutions but at the end of the day the providers tell me they dont have merchant bank accounts to accept debit/credit payments.

What do you guys suggest ?

 

[Gediminas]

Hi,

In addition to your current research, my biggest suggestion would be getting professional advice from an international tax advisor. It is very important to know where you stand, don't rely just on public posts in the forums, because every situation has its own circumstances.

 

[davosaseg]

Hi,

In addition to your current research, my biggest suggestion would be getting professional advice from an international tax advisor. It is very important to know where you stand, don't rely just on public posts in the forums, because every situation has its own circumstances.

Do you have a international tax advisor you can suggest? Or are you one? Would be great to jump on a call if you are, if not I would appreciate a contact.

 

[Sols]

Unless you are able to relocate the majority of your business away from Mexico, you're not going to be able to legally reduce your tax burden in Mexico.

Have a word with a tax adviser and they'll tell you the same thing, but in more detail.

In addition to the usual big four (Deloitte, PwC, KPMG, and EY), try Grant Thornton or BDO, or find someone in your city/region through https://www.hg.org/lawyers/mexico

 

[Gediminas]

Do you have a international tax advisor you can suggest? Or are you one? Would be great to jump on a call if you are, if not I would appreciate a contact.

Drop me an email

 

[mickey]

I was in the cc merchant account business for years and I can say that offshore merchant accounts do exists even for highrisk businesses, but the percentages and rolling reserves are usually higher and (now it comes) they are mostly not good enough "whitelisted".

What means "whitelisted" ... well between 2005-2015 they were more or less successful scams with fished creditcard-datasets combined with offshore merchant accounts which charged these fished creditcards. Standards like 3Dsecure (by mastercard) and VerfiedByVisa (by visacard) were setup in 2010 which combined a creditcard with the bank account. So a TAN was required to process a creditcard charge (beside the usual data like card-number, expiry-date and CVV/CVV2/CSC). This reduced the scams and chargebacks significantly but they were still some other dudes in the network which still charged pharmaceuticals, online casino or escort services. So the big banks (BoA, JPMMorgan, Citi) began to decline creditcard charges from OFFSHORE-BANKS due it was not clear to them if they comply with the Visa/Mastercard rules. This gaves a massive push to fraudsters like PayPal and Stripe. They are still other players in that field but I think the only way to go for your would be:
Company Offshore but Merchant-Account Onshore. Note a merchant-account is not taxable relevant it is just a payment gateway which do not tracks any expenses of a company who owns it. So it is not tax relevant. Sure a tax authority could track you down through a CC-Merchant account because it pays your offshore company every 6 weeks plus every 180 days your rolling reserve but every bank account who sends money to yours produces a trace to your offshore company.