Recruitment Company. Non-resident HK formation? Based in Thailand

[sherwoodcap]

Hi,
Currently I'm a newly opened UK recruitment company and looking to incorporate in HK on some advice that it's better for tax. I don't live in the UK and not really a fan of paying taxes there. I also can't get a bank account without living there.

Usually I'm based in Thailand, although not at the moment.
My questions are, is it worth setting up in HK these days?
Is it possible to get a bank account without living in HK?
Has anyone had any experience dealing with tax on the Thai side of things?

I've also been told to look at Cyprus and potentially Portugal.
Love that this forum and website, exists! long time reader first time poster!

 

[AreebMasood]

To me, It will very much depend on revenue and your visa arrangement in Thailand. We can have a Thai taxation discussion via pm.

 

[lostguy]

Is it possible to get a bank account without living in HK?

check with Neat, that may work for you.

 

[Fred]

Without travelling and a bunch of substance whoch again triggers taxation in HK - you can't open nowadays a non-resident Bank Account with any HK Bank unless you dump a lot of cash or you have strong ties to China.

From time to time we see clients getting capital injections from China Mainland and as part of this a HK Bank Account for the foreign Company - we are talking here about Millions of $.

We served already a lot of clients based in Thailand in the same situation like you.

@lostguy mentioned it already - without strong ties to China or the necessary substance you can get only HK EMI banking.

 

[drpreobrazhensky]

Forget Hong Kong.

It's become a progressively bigger pain in the balls over the last decade.

So much so that I'm dissolving my Hong Kong company and going with an alternative structure.

With Hong Kong you can expect:

• Endless paperwork
  
  often has to be posted and signed by you and sent and received at your expense quickly, lest you get dinged by IRD for "late fees"
  
  
• Poor English
  
  Half the time you don't know what they want from you and you have to triage it back and forth over email for like a week, by which time...you guessed it! Late fees.
  
  
• Proctologist-level Accounting / Auditing Requirements
  
  Dealing with accounting and auditing the way they do it in Hong Kong is incredibly time-consuming, frustrating, outmoded, and inflexible. Oh and you get to pay thousands of dollars for the privilege.
  
  
• Intrusive
  
  They demand the name, address and passport number of all of your contractors and salaried staff, regardless of where they are. And then the IRD mails them notices that they owe tax in Hong Kong. These are people who don't live in Hong Kong, are not Chinese, and have never even been to Asia. That level of presumptuousness has "China" written all over it. Didn't use to be the case up until this year by the way, first time I've had this asked of me.
  
  
• China
  
  On a scale of 1-10 I trust mainland Chinese at a 0. And if you have any wits about you, so should you.

Hong Kong is even useless as a Holding Company now because they'll want to audit your subsidiaries which would be prohibitively expensive, not to mention none of their beeswax.

HK is still the most tax optimized structure of the ones you listed, but keep looking, there are better options.

 

[Dasilva]

Forget Hong Kong.

It's become a progressively bigger pain in the balls over the last decade.

So much so that I'm dissolving my Hong Kong company and going with an alternative structure.

With Hong Kong you can expect:

• Endless paperwork
  
  often has to be posted and signed by you and sent and received at your expense quickly, lest you get dinged by IRD for "late fees"
  
  
• Poor English
  
  Half the time you don't know what they want from you and you have to triage it back and forth over email for like a week, by which time...you guessed it! Late fees.
  
  
• Proctologist-level Accounting / Auditing Requirements
  
  Dealing with accounting and auditing the way they do it in Hong Kong is incredibly time-consuming, frustrating, outmoded, and inflexible. Oh and you get to pay thousands of dollars for the privilege.
  
  
• Intrusive
  
  They demand the name, address and passport number of all of your contractors and salaried staff, regardless of where they are. And then the IRD mails them notices that they owe tax in Hong Kong. These are people who don't live in Hong Kong, are not Chinese, and have never even been to Asia. That level of presumptuousness has "China" written all over it. Didn't use to be the case up until this year by the way, first time I've had this asked of me.
  
  
• China
  
  On a scale of 1-10 I trust mainland Chinese at a 0. And if you have any wits about you, so should you.

Hong Kong is even useless as a Holding Company now because they'll want to audit your subsidiaries which would be prohibitively expensive, not to mention none of their beeswax.

HK is still the most tax optimized structure of the ones you listed, but keep looking, there are better options.

What’s your alternative structure ?

 

[lostguy]

You could setup different structures:

Dubai offshore company with banking - ask @Fred
Cyprus company with Cyprus banking and other places @CyprusLawyer101 @CyprusLaw may help you.
UK LTD with Wise account, simple and straight foward.

There are even more options.

 

[sherwoodcap]

Without travelling and a bunch of substance whoch again triggers taxation in HK - you can't open nowadays a non-resident Bank Account with any HK Bank unless you dump a lot of cash or you have strong ties to China.

From time to time we see clients getting capital injections from China Mainland and as part of this a HK Bank Account for the foreign Company - we are talking here about Millions of $.

We served already a lot of clients based in Thailand in the same situation like you.

@lostguy mentioned it already - without strong ties to China or the necessary substance you can get only HK EMI banking.

Fred, lets chat about a dubai set up. DM your details and lets arrange a call

 

[Fred]

Fred, lets chat about a dubai set up. DM your details and lets arrange a call

Just send us an enquiry through dls-dubai.com or Click there the direct Messenger Chat.