Non- US citizen, non-Green Card to use US LLC as a way to get paid as digital nomad.

[resident101]

Hi everyone, a question on tax here.

So I am a citizen of EU, and a few companies have been offering me remote jobs. Some of those companies have presence in the US, others don't.

I don't want to become a "self-employed" in my country in EU, the taxes are stupidly high.

I have an LLC in Wyoming that I never used (registered for an Amazon business that never took off) Can the company with US presence just use that LLC to pay my salary? Is this tax efficient?

I would owe corporate income tax in the US because my only "client" would be US company, so I would count as ETBUS. As I understand I would have to charge VAT and pay corp tax. Is this correct?

Does anyone have experience doing this? Is this setup efficient? What if the company has a presence i nthe US but also has a presence in, say, UK? What if the UK entity pays me? would I owe tax in the US since now a foreign entity would be paying my US LLC for my services?

This setup makes a lot of sense for Amazon because I would effectively pay no tax, but here there seem taxes to be paid.

Do you have any experience with this?

Thanks all!

 

[Sols]

It's pointless.

The US LLC becomes tax resident where you live. That means it either has to pay tax as a local company (same tax laws as a local company applies) or, if local law considers US LLC to be partnerships/transparent entities, you have to pay income tax on the income from the company.

The only way a US LLC setup works is if it somehow isn't caught or questioned. I wouldn't consider getting away with something for an unknown, indefinite period of time the same as it being a sustainable way to run a business.

If you're an EU citizen and don't want to comply with the tax laws of where you live, change your residence to for example Malta or Cyprus, where the taxes are lower.

If you can't or don't want to relocate, spend your energy on finding ways to optimise taxation locally (deductions, expenses, tax incentives). A good accountant can help you with that.