offshore structure for European Amazon FBA business

[charlemagne]

Hello

I see many smart people here.

Am asking for friend.

What is the best setup for a European Amazon FBA company structure? Amazon FBA = Amazon Fulfillment. It means that I send goods to Amazon and then Amazon stores all goods, gets orders, packs and sends to end customers.

The idea is to have a company in Cyprus (VAT registered).

The owners are two individuals. One EU citizen (Scandinavia), another non-EU citizen.
If possible the EU citizen should not be visible in any papers for the Scandinavian home country to find out (but will have to be visible to any bank hosting the corporate account).

Company buys merchandise in EU and Asia. Nothing is shipped to Cyprus, everything is shipped to a Scandinavian location for control, repacking and then sending out with DHL/Fedex/UPS to an Amazon FBA warehouse in EU (Germany). This temporary stop is max a few days before the goods are sent further to Amazon.
Amazon will receive everything as if it was the company in Cyprus sending the goods to the Amazon warehouse.

Need to have a middle man company in Scandinavia that handles the receivement of goods and send it further to Amazon? A middle man company that will charge and invoice the Cyprus company say a small percentage for the repackaging? I think best is to not involve any Scandinavian business to not leave any trace back to one of owner's home country.

If must have a Scandinavian middle man company, then maybe the Scandinavian company buys the goods from EU, gets everything in Scandinavia, repacks everything and then sells it to Cyprus company for small percentage profit and ships goods it to Amazon FBA in Germany? This way big profit stays in Cyprus.

Good to incorporate in Cyprus as an overall structure for this Amazon FBA?

Does the company need any real bank account for all this or can it be done with some kind of Transferwise, Paysera account?

What is the aim with this business?
Not taking out any personal salary etc. Keep the money in the business, re-invest and then maybe sell it for quite a large sum in 5-10 years.

What is the best company structure for this business?

 

[SaintVince]

a friend is using a HK company selling on AMZ European markets. Just register for vat and you are good to go.
im thinking for you you could also use similar approach a register company in jurisdiction that will still accept Amz registration. PaY VAT in EU and use offshore jurisdiction for profit centre

 

[charlemagne]

a friend is using a HK company selling on AMZ European markets. Just register for vat and you are good to go.
im thinking for you you could also use similar approach a register company in jurisdiction that will still accept Amz registration. PaY VAT in EU and use offshore jurisdiction for profit centre

Thank you. I never thought of opening this company outside of EU. This is a big saving on tax since the difference between Hong Kong tax and any other EU company tax is at least 10%. I double checked Amazon registration and they also accept Mauritius, Guernsey and Qatar which also are low on company tax.

Regarding Hong Kong, I see that Amazon requires a local real business address (not virtual) in the company country. Is your friend having any local presence in Hong Kong at all?

How is your friend banking? Real bank in Hong Kong or some kind of EMI accepted by Amazon?

 

[enesonc]

Thank you. I never thought of opening this company outside of EU. This is a big saving on tax since the difference between Hong Kong tax and any other EU company tax is at least 10%. I double checked Amazon registration and they also accept Mauritius, Guernsey and Qatar which also are low on company tax.

Regarding Hong Kong, I see that Amazon requires a local real business address (not virtual) in the company country. Is your friend having any local presence in Hong Kong at all?

How is your friend banking? Real bank in Hong Kong or some kind of EMI accepted by Amazon?

What about Estonia ?

 

[SaintVince]

Thank you. I never thought of opening this company outside of EU. This is a big saving on tax since the difference between Hong Kong tax and any other EU company tax is at least 10%. I double checked Amazon registration and they also accept Mauritius, Guernsey and Qatar which also are low on company tax.

Regarding Hong Kong, I see that Amazon requires a local real business address (not virtual) in the company country. Is your friend having any local presence in Hong Kong at all?

How is your friend banking? Real bank in Hong Kong or some kind of EMI accepted by Amazon?

Your agent should be able to provide the address.
banking can be done with neat and worldfirst. Forget about getting a bank account set up with high street banks. Hong Kong banks are ”up their a$$3$” and do not really want new businesses. So don’t even waste your time.

as for the HK set up I personally think it’s an overkill as all the agents NEVER tell you the fees for annual audits. These audits for Amz businesses could be way above USD5000 every year, with some even asking 10k per audit if there are a lot of transactions.

so look in other directions before you settle on Hong Kong as it could be a very expensive set up with next to nothing benefits that will eventually push you in a direction of Wyoming or New Mexico llc.

 

[charlemagne]

What about Estonia ?

Tax on distributed profits is very high in Estonia. But if this business is sold after 5 years for a big profit then the sale is not counted as distributed profits (I guess). Maybe Estonia could work.

 

[charlemagne]

so look in other directions before you settle on Hong Kong as it could be a very expensive set up with next to nothing benefits that will eventually push you in a direction of Wyoming or New Mexico llc.

So Hong Kong will have to wait then.

I also read that getting bank accounts for US company (for example Wyoming or New Mexico) can be pretty hard if there is no local business activities and directors are outside of US.
So maybe sticking to EU for example with a Cyprus company is still better/easier.

Your friend with Hong Kong business, is he shipping from Asia directly to Amazon FBA in EU or is he first importing to someplace in EU and then from there on send to Amazon FBA?

 

[Panama]

Is necessary to have EU citizenship in order to form Cyprus corporation?

 

[Roamer]

Nothing is shipped to Cyprus, everything is shipped to a Scandinavian location for control, repacking

Aren't you worried about the "central control and management" of your Cypriot company? It is partially controlled from Scandinavia which would, I assume, make the company liable to corporation tax over there, too?

I understand why you want secrecy but you would need to issue dividends to yourself back in Scandinavia? If not, your personal banking in Cyprus would still report with CRS.

Seems a little flimsy, no? Genuinely asking as I may have missed an important point.

 

[avalanche]

Your agent should be able to provide the address.
banking can be done with neat and worldfirst. Forget about getting a bank account set up with high street banks. Hong Kong banks are ”up their a$$3$” and do not really want new businesses. So don’t even waste your time.

as for the HK set up I personally think it’s an overkill as all the agents NEVER tell you the fees for annual audits. These audits for Amz businesses could be way above USD5000 every year, with some even asking 10k per audit if there are a lot of transactions.

so look in other directions before you settle on Hong Kong as it could be a very expensive set up with next to nothing benefits that will eventually push you in a direction of Wyoming or New Mexico llc.

Who would tell you price for audit if its unknown to the auditor how complex your transactions are ahead of time?